Some Assembly Required
by mangaluva
Summary: A general collection of MCU ficlets which may or may not be related. Most are Thor because I'm a mythology geek, some are related to the blog TheAvengersHeadcanons. All Tony Remembered has been moved here.
1. Flowers

_**Title: **__Flowers_

_**Word Count**__: 1897_

_**Main Character(s)**__: Shanta, Loki Laufeyson, Bruce Banner, Thor Odinsson_

_**Notes:**__ So I love this movie beyond all rationality and when wandering the internet in search of more Avengery goodness, I came across TheAvengersHeadcanons, a blog full of finest Avengers plunnies and very fine butts. This is now the first instalment of a collection of Avengers ficlets which may or may not be related to each other._

_Also, this fic prominently features Shanta, a character from the headcanons. She's the little girl that leads Bruce Banner to Black Widow at the beginning of The Avengers, and the headcanons generally hold that Bruce goes back and adopts her sometime after the events of the movie. They also frequently feature Loki doing some kind of rehab/jail time on Earth, locked up Stark Tower in one of Thor's rooms. Both of those are elements here that you ought to know about. Post-movie, so some spoilers are inherent. Enjoy!_

Shanta has only been living at Stark Tower for a few weeks, and still gets lost easily. One day, she runs into a room she doesn't know after getting off of the elevator on the wrong floor. Instead of running into Doctor Banner's kitchen, she finds herself in a very dark room.

(She shouldn't have been able to get in there at all, Tony swore later. But he couldn't figure out how the door had gotten unlocked, nor why Jarvis' security protocols hadn't alerted him that somebody had entered the room. Perhaps the room's inhabitant had more power left in him than they realized, but if that was true why was he still there?)

She's about to back out when she spots some movement in the darkness. Someone is sitting in a chair next to the drawn curtains. When he stands she sees that he is very tall, as tall as Uncle Thor or Uncle Steve, but his hair is dark unlike them, and he has funny dark clothes. She clutches the flowers she picked out of the greenhouse as he steps over to her.

"Lonely little girl," he says softly. "Why do you wander here?" Shanta is surprised and pleased to hear him speaking in Hindi. She still isn't very good at English, and while she's desperate to learn it's nice to hear a few sentences that she understands completely.

(He speaks the Alltongue, Thor explains later. It is heard by anyone as their native tongue. Steve had been wondering why the speech in Stuttgart had been in English. It had just seemed obnoxious, at the time. Now he wishes that it was a skill more people could learn. It would help people understand one another better, he thinks.)

"I'm looking for Doctor Banner," she says, returning easily to her native tongue, though she's tried hard for the past few weeks to speak only English. "I got lost. I think I'm on the wrong floor." She shuffles her feet, looking around as her eyes adjust to the darkness. There's a lot of green. "My name is Shanta," she declares. "Who are you?"

"I know about you, Shanta," the man says, stepping closer. "Child-minds shout their thoughts so loud, clear and direct... you are trying to make this place your home."

Shanta nods, clutching the flowers to her chest. She thinks the man is a little creepy. "Doctor Banner brought me here. He's very nice. I..." she looks around, as if someone else might be in the room, and whispers conspiratorially. "I want him to be my new baba." She giggles nervously, slamming a hand over her mouth as if trying to hide the words again. The man also laughs, short and cold.

"But your baba died!" he exclaims. "And your maa, and your brothers! Your home is gone and has been for years!"

Shanta scowls. She doesn't know why the man knows these things or is talking about her family, but she thinks he's being mean.

"That's why I want Doctor Banner to be my new family," she says firmly. "The others are all very nice and told me to call them aunties and uncles, like they're family, but Doctor Banner is nicest of all so I want him to be my new baba. This place is new and scary, but I am not afraid because I am with people that I love. I think that is enough for a family, people that you love. What about you mister? Where's your family? Are they here?"

"I have none," the man says, but he looks away from Shanta, like grown-ups always do when they're lying. They never look you in the eye. "You think it is so easy, child, to simply make a family?"

"Why not?" Shanta simply asks. "Y'know, if someone loves you, you ought to love them back. Then you're like family, and both of you have somebody, so you don't have to be lonely. That's why I want Doctor Banner to be my baba, so we don't ever have to be lonely again. I don't see why it's got to be hard."

The flowers abruptly vanish from her hands. She looks up to see the tall man holding them in his hand. They burst into flames and she screams.

"Be silent," the man says dismissively. "These are finer by far than your pathetic blooms." The fire dies away and the flowers are now bigger and look like they're made of gold and silver. They're very pretty, much prettier than any flower Shanta's ever seen. The man leans over to hand them back to her. "Do not be a fool, girl. Doctor Banner will not be your baba."

Shanta grips the flowers hard enough to almost crush them as tears fill her eyes. The man whispers something in her ear and she runs from the room.

The door clicks shut behind her, leaving Loki alone in the dark once more.

"There you are," Bruce says, unable to help smiling as Shanta runs out of the lift. She shrieks and giggles as he catches her and picks her up, taking her through to the kitchen. "I was about to send Jarvis looking for you- I'm hungry, aren't you? How about sandwiches for lunch?"

"Yes!" Shanta says excitedly. Bruce sits her down on the worktop and heads for the breadbin. Shanta stops him by thrusting a bundle of flowers under his nose. "For you!"

"For me?" Bruce repeats, taking the flowers. They're silver and gold and like nothing he's ever seen, and have a beautiful fragrance. "Thank you very much. They're beautiful." He crosses to the sink to fill a glass of water for them, and on the way taps one of the ever-present computer panels and asks Jarvis to call up Tony for him. He puts the flowers in a glass of water and manages to finish Shanta's sandwiches before Tony picks up. Thor's there too; it looks like they're in the garage, taking the Asgardian through the finer points of the internal combustion engine.

"_Wassup, big guy?_" Tony says. Thor waves to the camera before returning to examining some holographic engine schematics.

"Your greenhouse has some interesting plants," Bruce says, picking up the glass of flowers and holding it in front of the screen for the others to see. "Is it safe for Shanta to be running around in there?"

"_Jarvis'll keep her out of any rooms with poisonous plants,_" Tony says, "_but are you sure those came from the greenhouse? I don't recognize 'em._"

Thor suddenly loomed into view, staring at the flowers with a frown. "_Those are from the plains of Asgard,_" he says. "_They cannot be grown in this realm. Where could she have obtained them?_"

"Shanta?" Bruce asks, turning to the girl who is still sitting on the worktop, shovelling down a ham and cheese sandwich. "Where did you get these? Chew and swallow before you speak," he admonishes her as she opens her mouth. She nods, chewing rapidly. Bruce catches Tony grinning at him.

"Strange man in dark room give them to me!" Shanta declares after swallowing heavily.

"Strange man?" Bruce asks. She nods, stretching her arms up.

"Very tall, funny clothes, all dark," she says. "Sitting all alone in dark room below. Lots of green. Very strange man."

Bruce drops the glass. Over the _crash_, he hears Tony swearing and Thor saying something that includes his brother's name, before the screen goes blank as both run out of the garage. Bruce clenches his fists, fighting shock and rage- pure, sudden anger at whatever _idiot_ was responsible for Shanta being able to get into _Loki's_ room-

He turns his back on Shanta and clutches the worktop, noticing with alarm that it crumbles under his hands. No, he can't, not here-

"He say odd things," Shanta says, watching her foster father nervously. She has never seen him transform before, and won't know what's happening until it's too late to run away-

"I think he lonely," she continues, scooting around the worktop until Bruce can see her. "I say this, and he give me flowers and a word."

"A... a word?" Bruce says shakily as fear and panic join the dangerous emotional cocktail that is causing his muscles to bulge. On Asgard, words are power, he's been told, which is why Loki is a sorcerer of such great power. His words are as powerful here as they are on Asgard, and there is no telling what a single word from him could do to a child like Shanta. What did he say...?

"Shanta, you have to leave," he gasps, dropping to his knees and wrapping his arms around himself, as if trying to hold himself in, which he knows will be futile in a few moments. Shanta doesn't, instead stepping closer, biting her lip out of what seems to be nervousness rather than fear.

"Daddy," she blurts out. "He says it is word I can call you, if you like. Can I call you daddy, Doctor Banner? Is daddy good word?"

It is only seconds later that Tony and Thor burst into the room, Thor with Mjolnir at the ready and Tony clicking his Mk VII bracelets into place. They had not expected to see that Bruce was still Bruce, sitting on his kitchen floor and hugging Shanta to him, tears leaking out of his eyes as vivid green faded away.

"It's a very good word," he's saying, rocking Shanta slightly. "It's a very, very good word. I'd given up on ever hearing it. Thank you, Shanta."

"Then you are daddy now?" Shanta says, flinging her arms around Bruce's neck when he nods. "Is very good! Thank you!" Bruce looks up at Thor and Tony over Shanta's head.

"Tell your brother, too," he says quietly to Thor. "Thank you."

Every time Thor has visited Loki, his younger brother has sat in silence and in darkness, perversely abandoning all attempt to speak as soon as he was permitted to do so. Today, though, the curtains are open just a chink, and Loki is staring out at a half-constructed skyscraper. The damage of the Battle of Manhattan is being repaired.

"Your words have always held such power, brother," he says, seating himself on the other chair. "I wish you would use that power for good more often."

"It's not that easy," Loki says quietly. It's the first time he's spoken to Thor since his capture. "But why not?"

"It can be easy, if you let me help you," Thor says. "I have offered time and again. That offer will always be open to you, brother." He holds out his hand, halfway across the table. Just halfway. He won't pull Loki out. Loki has to make an effort too. Just a little. Just halfway. He has to take himself to a point where he isn't alone, just like Bruce Banner did, taking the risk to come back to Manhattan, to get into Tony Stark's car, to hunt the streets of Kolkata for a little girl.

Loki reaches out and pushes the curtain aside a little more. Maybe he reached just briefly for Thor's hand, or maybe not. But when he is ready to reach out, Thor's hand will always be there waiting.

Until the flowers on Bruce Banner's desk wilt.

(Flowers from Asgard never wilt, and when crushed only bloom back more beautiful.)

_I don't own anything here. All characters are property of Marvel, except Shanta, who belongs to all the lovely people at TheAvengersHeadcanons (theavengersheadcanons (dot) tumblr (dot) com)_


	2. All Tony Remembered

_**Title**__: All Tony Remembered_

_**Word Count: **__703_

_**Main Character(s)**__: Howard Stark, Tony Stark_

_**Notes**__: _..._Another AvengersHeadcanons drabble. someonefinallystarted asked for more Howard Stark headcanons, and this happened. Interpretations of Howard Stark are many and variable, but this is my take on his MCU self. No ownie._

It had been one thing to be part of the exciting project to make the world's most powerful weapon, and quite another to see it used on living people and the subsequent effect on the world. Between the loss of Steve Rogers and the first atomic bomb, 1945 was a sobering year for Howard Stark. He never lost his faith that technology could make the world a better place, and the birth of his son many years later only rejuvenated his drive to improve people's lives. Some of his experiments were very dangerous, due to the technology of the time. He was willing to risk his own life to create the tech to make it safe for Tony to experiment for himself in the future, but Tony wanted to experiment _now_, and seeing his young son wandering into his labs always frightened Howard. He panicked, he shouted, and breathed a sigh of relief when Tony was safely out of the line of fire, promising himself he'd make it up to the boy later.

All Tony remembered was that Howard was always busy, and often shouted.

The very first Ark Reactor experiments with Anton Vanko were revolutionary, but they were also extraordinarily dangerous. Howard could still remember being blasted across a room by a mere fragment of the Tessarect, and they were working to recreate that power at a thousand times the size. He could inadvertently take out the whole building. He was grateful that Tony was starting at school, at an expensive, well-recommended school far away from the danger zone. Even if Howard accidentally took out the whole state, Tony would be safe.

All Tony remembered was that his father was happy to see him go.

Howard often only got to see Tony at bedtime, so bedtime stories were his forte. Most were about Steve Rogers, his much-missed friend. Steve had inspired Howard, and he wanted him to inspire Tony too. Steve had proved that heroes were real, and that what truly made people remarkable was what was inside of them. Tony's brilliance was obvious from a young age, and Howard knew that the boy was one day going to be far smarter than even him. That wasn't something that someone like Howard Stark would admit, but he thought it was obvious for all to see.

All Tony remembered was that his father had far better things to say about a long-dead soldier than he ever did about his own son.

The day that Tony's son was born, he was elated and he was terrified. He was ecstatic to meet his son, the child that he and Pepper had been waiting months for. He thought the child was the most beautiful, perfect thing he'd ever seen. He'd spent years creating the Ark Reactor and Pepper had made infinitely more wonderful in just nine months. Typical.

But he was afraid because he was still an Avenger. The Earth wasn't currently at risk, but if there was another alien attack, another supervillain, Tony knew he'd fight. He knew that there was still much work to be done to turn Earth into a safe paradise on a par with Asgard (Tony always did shoot for the stars). He wanted his son to live in that world, but he knew that to do that sometimes he'd have to abandon him. Sometimes he'd have to work instead of play. Sometimes, he'd have to send him away from the fight. His own lonely memories of his father had long made him determined to not be that person, to always put his son first, but how could he if doing so would put at risk the world that he wanted his child to live in?

For the first time in his life, he felt that he truly understood his father, and no matter how much he knew that it would hurt his son to relive his childhood, Tony knew that he might have no choice.

It scared him that the only thing he could think to do was the same thing that Howard had done; leave a recording, in case anything ever happened before he got to explain. To apologize.

History was repeating itself, and he had no choice.


	3. Legendary

_**Title**__: Legendary_

_**Word Count: **__1122_

_**Main Character(s)**__: Thor Odinsson, Loki Odinsson, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Jane Foster, Steve Rogers, Darcy Lewis, Bruce Banner, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanov_

_**Notes**__: To anyone who actually read the above line: I give Loki different names depending on what time of his life the fic refers to. Once he's abandoned the House of Odin, I call him Laufeyson, but this refers to a time when he still thought of himself as an Odinsson. Also, yes, this is a genuine myth they are talking about. No ownie._

Laughter rolled out of the small New York shawarma joint late in the evening. The Avengers' Friday shawarma lunches had grown into full-day hangouts after the shop savvily started offering bar service in the evenings, and prices for the rest of the populace to get a table on Fridays were through the roof. There was always at least Tony Stark and Bruce Banner to be seen eating there, with anyone else who was in New York, which this week was _everyone_.

Everyone was a little more than usual, too. Jane Foster and her PA, Darcy Lewis, had just moved into Stark Tower- in fact, Jane had almost refused to leave after seeing the Stark Laboratories- and they were celebrating in a proud fusion of Midgardian and Asgardian tradition.

_Lots_ of drinks.

"...but it was a really nice dress!" Tony was shouting over the uproarious laughter. "Seriously, I thought I looked good."

"You even managed to shave your legs, as I recall," Pepper put in. "How did you manage that drunk? I tend to cut myself when I'm _sober_, and I'm experienced. You never shave your legs."

"Clearly, I was dedicated to looking good," Tony insisted.

"That should not come as a surprise to anyone," Steve laughed, taking a swig from his mug of appletini. Nobody dared call him out on his choice of drinks; besides, since he couldn't actually get drunk, he preferred drinks with a sweet flavour over anything with any real alcohol content. Tony was making plans to get some really _good_ absinthe in from Spain to test the limits of the super soldier's metabolism.

"C'mon, like I'm the only guy who's ever crossdressed?" Tony complained, spreading his arms. Most of the others just laughed at him, but Thor choked on a mouthful of ale and turned an interesting shade of red. Jane grinned as she gave him a sideways glance.

"Y'know, Thor," she said innocently, "I've read a _lot_ of Norse mythology since meeting you. For academic purposes, of course, but there are some really interesting stories in there. I was just reading one about a gang of giants managing to steal Mjolnir..."

"_That_ story is on Midgard?" Thor cried, looking horrified. "Who would have told- mm." He frowned thoughtfully and drained his glass.

"_Stole_ Myeh-myeh?" Darcy said curiously. "How'd that happen? And what's it have to do with- _NO. _No!" She shrieked out a laugh. "_You_?"

"This sounds interesting," Clint commented. "C'mon, Miss Foster, what happened?"

"Well, the story says that the giants demanded..." Jane began, but Thor shook his head, cutting her off sharply.

"If this story is to be told, _I _will tell it," he said firmly. "I am sure the version that resides on Midgard is... distorted."

"So tell already!" Tony said, raising his hands in the air. "Hey, Adnan, get us another round of drinks, this sounds like a good story!"

"Well, Mjolnir was indeed stolen by a foul pack of giants," Thor said, scowling at the thought of his beloved hammer in others' hands. "In exchange for its return, their leader demanded the hand of the Lady Freya, one of the most beautiful women in all of Asgard. This was something that the lady was not agreeable to. We attempted to convince her at least to go in, to pretend, long enough for a raiding party to take them by surprise and retrieve Mjolnir, but she refused. She suggested that another woman go in her place, but we could find none who were willing." A little grin found its way onto his face. "I thought the Lady Sif would eviscerate me when I suggested it."

"They wouldn't be able to tell another woman apart from Freya?" Bruce asked. Thor shrugged.

"This gang was formed of many of the most monstrous giants," he said. "The Lady Freya was famous for her beauty, but any Asgardian would be immensely beautiful next to them. So when we were unable to find a willing lady to replace Freya... another suggestion was made." He bowed his head gratefully to the young man who refilled his tankard and took a long drink to steel himself. "It was suggested that I go in Freya's place."

After the laughter had died down somewhat, Pepper managed to choke out, "Who- suggested- _that_?"

"Loki did," Thor said, looking down into his mug. The name was enough to cause the laughter to die down entirely. "He offered to come along as my bridesmaid. He made a rather dainty lady, too," he chuckled, now lost in reminiscence. "He was far more enthusiastic about the idea than I was, as you can imagine. He used his magic to enhance our disguises- particularly thickening my wedding veil to hide the fact that I refused to shave!"

"And they bought it?" Natasha asked incredulously. Thor nodded, laughing again.

"Well, a few suspicions cropped up over dinner due to my poor acting skills," he laughed, "but Loki's silver tongue saved us both. One of the giants spotted me glaring at their leader as if I wanted to kill him, and Loki told him that the "murderous gleam" in my eye was simply tiredness, for I had been so excited about the wedding that I had not slept for a week!" The Thunder God's happy laughter was infectious, and giggles and sniggers wound their way around the table.

"So how'd you get Myeh-myeh back?" Darcy asked. Thor nodded.

"They brought Mjolnir out with which to bless the "bride"," he said, "At which point I seized it and ripped off my veil, revealing myself to them! The battle that followed was glorious to behold, I'm sure... or at least, would have been, were my brother and I not still in our dresses..."

"You fought the whole battle still in a _wedding dress_?" Jane shouted over the others' laughter. Thor nodded. "The legend didn't mention that!"

"It didn't?" Thor asked curiously. "That is odd. That tale can only have been told to the Midgardians by Loki, for he was the only one to fight at my side that day. I thought it would be the kind of detail he would deem amusing to tell."

"It wasn't mentioned," Jane said, shaking her head. "It just tells of your "mighty deeds" in slaying all of the giants. Makes you sound quite heroic, actually. I assumed that you took off the dress with the veil, I guess..."

Silence fell over the table as Thor stared ponderously into his mug, likely thinking of the brother who had once told stories about him as if he were a hero.

"You don't still have the dress, do you?" Tony asked, breaking the silence. He had to duck under the table as the ale mug flew over his head.


	4. A Brother's Duty

_**Title**__: A Brother's Duty_

_**Words**__: 721_

_**Main Characters:**__ Thor Odinsson, Loki Odinsson_

_**Notes**__: A peekk into Thor and Loki's childhood. Children are children, even on Asgard- and children are cruel. Even when they don't mean to be._

"Weirdo!"

"Freak!"

Seven-year-old Thor has been following the sound of children shouting for a while, looking for someone to play with, but he is worried to hear that it is angry shouting. He starts running towards the noise, wondering what is wrong.

There is a bully circle in a small, otherwise deserted plaza that is popular for playing ball games in. Eight or nine other children are all shouting and pushing at the victim in the middle. Something crawls out from between the legs of two boys, and a moment later the victim in the middle seems to vanish into thin air. Thor is horrified to realize that the escaping victim is his six-year-old brother.

"Coward! Running away!" yells Berg, a nine-year-old Valkyrieson. He grabs Loki's arm and raises his other fist to hit him. Despite the fact that Berg is larger and older than him, Thor does not hesitate to headbutt him as hard as he can.

"You dare lay hands on my brother?" Thor roars, as loud as his little lungs can manage. It's enough to make the other children pause. Half of battle, he has already been taught, is confidence and intimidation.

"Stay out of this, princey," Berg huffs, though he doesn't make a move to resume the fight. Loki is more likely to run and hide, but it is well known that Thor always fights and is often boastful about them whether he wins or loses. Besides, it is just beginning to dawn on them that even though fighting is not discouraged in Asgard, ganging up on the King's son is nevertheless likely to get them in trouble.

"C'mon, Berg, let's just go find where your helmet flew to," mutters Volstagg, a short, round boy about Loki's age. The other kids are already slipping away while Thor is focused on staring down Berg.

Berg finally backs off in a huff. Only after his adversary is out of sight does Thor turn his back to check on his brother. Loki is rubbing gingerly at a black eye, looking sullen.

"Didn't need you to fight that stupid Berg for me," he complains.

"I'm your big brother, protecting you is my duty!" Thor declares, privately vowing to track Berg down later and pay him back double. He knows he'd be annoyed if someone else finished his fight for him, as would any true warrior, but a warrior is not what he sees his brother as. Loki is quieter and cleverer, and very skilled at magic. He can do all sorts of cool things that Thor never could, which more than makes up for him not being much of a fighter, in Thor's opinion. "Why did Berg's helmet fly away?"

"He was showing off this stupid new helmet he had," Loki mutters. "It had these big silly feathers on it. I'm surprised it was big enough for his big fat head!" Loki makes a face, and Thor mirrors it. It's true; Berg _does_ have a big fat head. "So I turned it into a bird and it flew away."

"You did? _Cool_!" Thor exclaims. "Can you do it again?"

"Uh-huh..." Loki digs in his pockets and finds a small stone with a hole in it. "Um, I don't think this is big enough for a bird, but I think I can do... _this_..." he passes his hand over the stone, face screwed up in concentration, and it turns into a dragonfly. It buzzes up into the air, flying around Thor's head.

"That's brilliant!" Thor laughs, spinning in circles to watch it.

"You think so?" Loki says, biting his lip, unable to contain a smile at the praise.

"Yeah!" Thor says, watching the dragonfly return to Loki's hand and turn back into a stone. "I wish I could do cool stuff like that."

"Yeah, but you're strong enough to beat up Berg," Loki mutters, looking down. Thor grabs his hand and pulls him off.

"C'mon, let's get a healer to fix your eye," he says. "An' then we'll tell everyone how _you_ got into a fight with Berg before he gets to spread any stupid stories about you!"

"Okay," Loki agrees, pocketing his stone. He wants to show his trick to Mother and Father later, and is secretly glad that Thor won't be upstaging him with a story about him headbutting Berg.


	5. Vale 1: Punishment

_**Title:**__ Vale: Punishment_

_**Word Count**__: 2879_

_**Main Character(s)**__: ...that's kind of a spoiler... _

_**Notes:**__ So because I'm a mythology geek I've started weaving actual Norse myths into MCU!Thor and Loki's backgrounds. This story concerns Loki's final punishment in the original mythology. Notes about the myths and stories involved are at the bottom, for anyone who cares. No ownie._

_Also, this is set about a year after the Battle of Manhatten, and in the meantime Peter Parker has joined the Avengers because I'm sad that Spiderman can't be in this universe yet. All of the Avengers have flats in Stark Tower, including Clint and Natasha, but the latter two don't generally live there and Steve travels a lot. So does Thor, after a while of Loki being a peaceful prisoner, because he likes seeing Jane's work and she has to travel for some of it. They're only all at the tower when there's something going on. Like now..._

Odin strips Loki of his powers and banishes him to Midgard, as he did Thor, where he is kept confined in some special rooms in Stark Tower. The reaction to this punishment is mixed on Asgard. Crimes of the scope of Loki's have not been committed by an Asgardian for centuries. Some want him to be punished as a Jotun and simply killed. Some believe in the old punishments, which have been neither changed nor implemented for centuries. They are no less than torture, and Odin is uneasy about using them. So he uses an alternate punishment, not dissimilar to the banishment that he inflicted on Thor, hoping in his heart that it will help Loki as it did his brother.

Some are satisfied with this punishment. Some are not. And some, in the warrior-society of Asgard, decide to take matters into their own hands.

Midgard is now considered a developed enough world to have some control over what extraterrestrials cross its borders. Odin has met with Nick Fury and the World Security Council, a meeting that was highly enjoyable for Fury (he doesn't know how the hell Odin managed to actually illuminate the four council members over video call, but their shocked expressions were a joy to behold) and have agreed that, for the time being, only a small selection of Asgardians will be given free travel until Midgard is ready. Odin is content with this, as he knows that there is unrest over his punishment of Loki and that there are many who had hoped to travel to Midgard and kill him themselves. He does not realize until it is too late that those who are angry enough to do so may find alternate targets.

There is a year of unrest before Loki's true punishment strikes.

{}

The sky over New York is strange, the clouds filled with pulsating light. Thor has been back and forth just enough times for Jarvis to be capable of recognizing a Bifrost portal, and the AI alerts Tony, who in turn wakes Thor. The Thunder God has barely stepped out onto his balcony before the rainbow light swallows him up, carrying him off to Asgard.

"I guess it's important, then?" Tony comments to the fading clouds. He returns to his penthouse, locking up Thor's floor for him while he's gone. Loki has been a surprisingly tame guest over the past year, but better to be safe than sorry, especially with that new Parker kid running around the building.

It is late in the evening, after a clear day, that thick clouds roll in, and heavy rain and lightning strike down on New York. Thor's not above announcing his arrivals with a little lightning, to the point where the citizens of New York are quite acclimatized to random thunderstorms, adaptable as ever. The heavy rain is a little strange, though.

Thor appears on Tony's balcony on the top floor. He is carrying a sleeping boy of about twelve in his arms, a child with messy black hair and oddly pointed ears, dressed in blue and black Asgardian clothes. Thor's expression is even more thunderous than the weather.

"Tony, I am sorry to ask more of you," he says as the other Avengers join him, "but I must find somewhere safe for this boy. He is not safe on Asgard, and this is the only realm I could think to take him."

"Oh my god, what's happened to him?" Pepper gasps. They've all noticed the bloodstains on the boy's hands and face.

"This boy's name is Vale," Thor says, "and his brother is dead. Please, may he rest here?"

"You've got spare rooms in your floor, use 'em," Tony says with a shrug.

"I'll come help you clean him up," Bruce offers. Thor offers him a grateful smile. Vale is only a couple of years older than Shanta, and Thor can see the doctor's heart going out to another child who has lost his family.

"Who is this kid, Thor?" Steve asks, stopping Thor as he makes for the lift.

"His name is Vale," Thor repeats, skirting the question.

"You said that," Natasha points out. "But who _is_ he?"

"I must speak to my brother," Thor says, pushing past Steve.

{}

Loki is listening to music when Thor enters the room. Thor switches off the music, striding over to his brother. Loki looks curious about the dark expression on Thor's face, the heavy way that the older man drops into the chair opposite him. He remains silent, as he often does when Thor comes to him, waiting for his brother's latest entreaty. He does not expect this.

"Loki," Thor says heavily, "Narfe is dead."

Tony has opened up the security feed so that the other Avengers can listen in, to find out what is going on. They are all shocked by the way Loki gapes, his eyes widening and his mouth dropping open, before his face crumples entirely and he drops his head into his hands.

"There are those of Asgard who do not agree with your punishment," Thor says. "Some set about Narfe and Vale. They turned Vale into a wolf. Vale panicked, he lashed out, and Narfe was standing closest..."

Loki's breath is harsh and ragged. "Why not kill me, then?" he whispers. "If Asgard has rebelled against the Allfather's decision, why does he not simply kill me? Would it not be so much simpler?"

"You know why he does not wish to execute you," Thor says sharply, "nor condemn you to the serpent's venom. It is not all Asgard that rebels, simply an angry few. They are being dealt with, both for causing the death of an innocent child and for endangering all of Asgard. Had the spell held, Vale's rampage could have been..."

"Like Fenrir," Loki laughs bitterly. When he raises his head, tear tracks are visible on his cheeks. "That was surely their intent in turning him into a wolf. They can claim that he, too, is a monster." His face falls. "What of Sigyn?" he asks softly, hesitantly.

"She has taken Narfe's body to the water meadows," Thor says. "I do now know how long she plans to stay. She asked me to see to Vale's safety. He is here now, a boy again. Do you wish me to bring him to see you?"

Loki looks away sharply. "If he is a boy again, then better not to," he says bitterly. "No need for him to be exposed to monsters again."

{}

Thank you for staying with him," Thor says, sitting down next to Vale's bed. The boy's sleep is fitful and restless, and clearly plagued by nightmares.

"Thor," Bruce says, "I heard your conversation with Loki. We all did. This kid... is he..."

Vale's eyes drift open. They are sharp and green, and focus on Thor.

"Uncle," he whispers. "Where am I... What happened to..."

Thor smoothes the hair from his forehead. "It is okay. You are safe now, Vale."

"Where is Narfe?" Vale asks. "Where is my brother?"

"He is gone, Vale," Thor says softly. "I am sorry."

Vale's face crumples in a way that Bruce is sure that he saw not half an hour before, and then he buries his face in the bedcovers and sobs.

{}

"Loki's son?" Steve says. "You brought _Loki's_ son here?"

"I will take him elsewhere if he is unwelcome," Thor says firmly, "but I will not see him returned to Asgard. He is an innocent child."

"Thought you said he turned into a wolf and ripped his brother apart," Clint points out.

"His transformation was not of his will," Thor says sharply. "I do not believe that he will transform again. He does not remember what has happened, and his been so grief-stricken over his brother's death that I have not yet told him."

"Guys, is this really so terrible?" Peter asks. The newest Avenger is still nervous about piping up during conferences, and flushes as everyone looks at him. "I mean, if the kid's not actually dangerous, what's the problem?"

"His _father_ is the problem," Natasha responds.

"Vale has not seen his father since before my banishment," Thor argues. "Vale is not evil, or dangerous. I will not see him punished further for the nature of his birth, over which he has no control!"

"I'm still reeling that your crazy brother's a _dad_," Darcy puts in.

"Y'know, guys, I think I gotta go with Thor and Pete on this," Tony says. "This kid needs help. We can't prejudge him based on what his dad's done. Doing that might just turn him _into_ his dad." If anyone notices Pepper taking his hand during this, they are careful to show no sign of this.

"I agree," Bruce says. "Treating this kid like a monster isn't exactly going to prevent him becoming one. Isn't that more or less what happened to Loki?"

"Somewhat, yes," Thor says, feeling shamefaced. "I beg of you, my friends. Give my nephew the gift of a chance."

"I suppose we could trial-run him," Steve suggests. "Keep him confined to Thor's floor, to start with. Monitor his behaviour and assess whether he's a threat or just a damaged kid."

"Thank you, Captain," Thor says gratefully. "I promise you, he is not a bad child. His mother is a water nymph, and she has raised him well." He smiles sadly. "Once, we did not get along. She used to say that I was pompous, arrogant. She was entirely correct."

"How'd a girl like that wind up with your brother?" Tony asks curiously.

"Loki was once very different to how he is now," Thor says. "She says that she fell in love with him the moment his reflection crossed her pond." The sad smile returns. "I think she saw a far better man in that reflection than he ever did."

{}

Thor is concerned but not entirely surprised by Vale's dour demeanour over the next few days and weeks. It pains him to see the way Vale's head constantly flicks to the side, looking for his twin's reaction to whatever he has just seen or heart, and the way Vale's face crumples when he sees nothing there.

He is not sure if Vale is aware that his father is elsewhere in the building, and does not tell him so; Loki has refused to see Vale, and Thor fears heaping more trauma on his nephew if Loki has a strong negative reaction to seeing him. He has not yet found the way to tell Vale that his brother's death was by his own fang.

Both Jane and Darcy have rooms on Thor's floor, though Jane just as often sleeps in Thor's room these days (he knows that this is not the Midgard version of marriage, but feels unaccountably nervous about telling Jane that it is the Asgardian definition). Neither have shied away from Vale. Darcy has made it her personal mission, as she did for the lady Sif and the Warriors Three during their visit and Thor and Steve constantly, to educate Vale on Midgardian entertainment and culture. She is determined to find something to make the depressed boy giggle again. Jane is not really the mothering type, but she tries her best to make Vale feel welcome and spend some time with him when she's not in her laboratory.

Peter Parker is Darcy's ally in the pop-culture onslaught, and seems to like visiting Vale. Parker joined the Avengers after the Chitauri incident, so Thor isn't entirely sure if he really understands the gravity of the situation with Loki, but he appreciates that Vale is not being made to feel unwelcome or a monster. He has no wish to see Vale fall as Loki did.

Bruce visits often, too, both Vale and Loki. He eventually brings Shanta to see Vale as well, which is the clearest sign that he trusts the boy. Shanta and Vale, being the only children in the building and only a couple of years apart in age, get along very well. Shanta, too, has lost brothers and parents, and is very good at gauging what is likely to upset Vale.

Thor keeps Loki updated on how Vale is doing. Loki shows no outward interest, but Thor cannot forget his breakdown on hearing of Narfe's death.

{}

After a month, Vale has caused no trouble or concern. Thor had been worried about Vale's mischievous streak, so like his father's, but it seems to have died with Narfe. Vale has been a quiet, sad boy, a far cry from the bubbly child that Thor once knew, but that is understandable. Vale no longer looks around for his brother, but Thor sometimes hears him talking to Narfe when he thinks he is alone.

Shanta is already planning for Vale a grand tour of Stark Tower. Vale has not yet seen Loki, and Thor has heard nothing from Sigyn, but he is determined that Vale will at least know the truth of what befell his brother before he meets the rest of the Avengers.

One night, he sits Vale down to tell him. Vale cuts him off.

"It's alright, Uncle," he says. "I know. I killed Narfe."

Thor is startled. "Who told you?"

"Narfe did," Vale says quietly. "But he forgave me. He said that it wasn't my fault. That makes it okay, doesn't it?" He looks pleadingly at Thor, begging for absolution.

"It is going to be alright, Vale," Thor says, worried that Vale thinks Narfe is talking to him but unwilling to take away anything that will ease the boy's troubled mind. He places a hand on his nephew's neck. "I swear."

{}

Thor can't help but feel some nervousness about leaving Vale on Midgard. There is no way he will take the boy with him back to Asgard, but he must talk to Sigyn and his father. The others seem to bear no ill will towards Vale, but Thor is comforted to receive Bruce's promise that both of him will see to Vale's safety.

Thor has not been to the water meadows often. They are beautiful, but the nymphs guard their pools jealously and are not above enchanting or drowning anyone they deem a trespasser; in any case, such a peaceful place did not appeal to his younger, more warlike self.

He eventually finds Sigyn's pool in a concealed copse. It is truly, extraordinarily beautiful, filled with small lights and strange plants. Thor carefully steps over a burst of silver and gold flowers, a kind which do not normally grow in the water meadows. He wonders sadly if the beautiful plants are Loki's doing. It's hard to believe that such beauty could come from the sullen mass-murderer now locked into a concealed room in Stark Tower. But Thor can still remember the feasting to celebrate Loki and Sigyn's union, how bright and happy Loki had been then. Thor had been overjoyed for his brother, happy to see him love again after his affair with Angrboda had ended so badly. That was a man that Thor could believe would make flowers.

Sigyn does not look up from the pool. She is sitting on its edge, her long golden hair unbound and floating down into the water with the hem of her dress and her cloak, as if all three are liquid as well. Thor is startled to look into the pool and see Narfe's body, perfectly preserved and without a trace of damage.

"My boy will never wake again," Sigyn says softly, "but I can at least leave him without scars." She trails her fingers in the water over her dead son's face. It barely ripples. "Why do you disturb my mourning?"

"On behalf of your son still living," Thor says. "Vale too mourns for his brother, and fears himself. His father will not see him; would you deprive him of his mother too?"

"He fears himself?" Sigyn muses. "How like his father. Perhaps I ought to bring him here. It cannot be good for him to remain in your care."

Though Thor hopes to see Vale reunited with his mother, he is stung by this. "What do you mean?" he demands. "I took him from Asgard to protect him! I mean him no harm!"

"I do not doubt that for a second, Thunderer," Sigyn says smoothly. "Nor do I believe that you ever meant harm upon Loki. I know that you love him as dearly as I. Nevertheless, harm he suffered whenever the two of you fought great battles together and the halls of Asgard rung only with tales of your might. Whenever you were praised and he was suspected. Whenever it was spoken of how different the two of you are, what a _shame_ it was that he was not more like _you..._"

Thor flinches from the biting truth. "Loki has always had great gifts that I do not," he says, gesturing to the beautiful glade. "I could never create something like this. His gifts are arguably much greater than mine."

"Then perhaps you ought to have argued it more often," Sigyn hisses.

"I have changed since then," Thor says.

"So has my husband," Sigyn says, returning her gaze to her dead son's face. "And once again, you have come out far better than he."

_**Mythology Notes:**__ This fic is based on the story of Loki's final punishment. Translations of the old Norse myths vary widely, and I've read a few different versions, so I've possibly mixed different elements of different versions together here :P This is the general myth, but be warned, it's kind of the definition of "fucked up":_

_When the other gods had finally had enough of Loki, due to his role in Baldr's death and a few other resultant acts of douchebaggery, they sentenced him to be bound eternally to a boulder/tree (it varies). The messed up part is that they don't just bind him with rope or chains. They bring his two sons, Nari/Narfi/Narfe and Vari/Vali/Vale (both have multiple translation names; I like Narfe and Vale just because) and trap the pair in a magic circle. They then turn Vale into a savage wolf and he rips Narfe apart. They then bind Loki with _Narfe's entrails._ Vale's fate thereafter isn't mentioned that I can recall, but probably he was killed because Fenrir was quite enough trouble to be getting on with. Anyway, once they're done tying Loki up with his murdered son's intestines (which have turned to iron because), they dangle a snake over his head that constantly drips venom onto his face. Sigyn, Loki's wife, who isn't mentioned before this in the _Poetic Edda_ and is only brought up briefly as a nymph and Loki's wife in the _Prose Edda_, sits by Loki holding a bowl over his face to catch the venom. However, the bowl occasionally fills up, so she has to go empty it. When she does, venom drips onto Loki's face, and his writhing in pain is violent enough to cause earthquakes. This process repeats until he finally breaks free and kicks off Ragnarok._

_The MCU versions of the gods are somewhat different in character from the mythological versions. Odin, while still not exactly being a candidate for World's Best Dad, is still far more benevolent than he is in the mythology, and I can't see Anthony Hopkins!Odin ordering a punishment this messed-up- and I certainly can't see Chris Hemsworth!Thor tolerating it. The main elements in this are the death of Narfe and the transformation of Vale, which are under slightly different circumstances._

_There's pretty much nothing stated about Sigyn, but I've tried to keep what there is. She's said to be a nymph, but what kind isn't stated, so I went with water nymph because I like water nymphs and I got a very clear image in my head of her enchanted pool. She's also deeply devoted to her husband, so by extension she doesn't like Thor much at all :P And she's described as being sorrowful, though as her only appearance is when her husband is being tortured this probably isn't her default state of being :P Here Loki isn't being tortured, just confined, so her solemn guard duty is over Narfe's body while she mourns. That she isn't there for Vale is in line with the myth; if he did survive, she spends the rest of time guarding her husband, so it's not like she's there for him then either :P_

_I can find close to nothing about Narfe and Vale beyond their presence at Loki's binding. So I have a lot of free range to make stuff up about them, like randomly deciding their ages and that they're twins :P I figure Vale might have some interesting powers, being the son of a Jotun sorcerer and a water nymph. I mean, look at Loki's kids with Angrboda..._

_Oh, finally, in my headcanon, Loki was married to Sigyn and father to Narfe and Vale at the time of _Thor_, we just didn't get to see him interacting with them. Sigyn didn't attend Thor's coronation with her sons because she didn't approve of it, and directly after the botched coronation Loki was having to deal with angry Thor and the trip to Jotunheim. He didn't want to be around his family after discovering he was a Jotun, for reasons that I hope to elaborate on later, so he told Sigyn that he'd be away from them for a while as he had to deal with King stuff. For obvious reasons, he never got to go back to his family. Sigyn's devotion to Loki is well-known, so she's not been allowed near him since his incarceration in case she helps him break out._

_So yeah, I hope you enjoy my take on the mythology in this universe, and if you want to read more, let me know :D _


	6. On The Inside

_**Title**__: On the Inside_

_**Words**__: 364_

_**Main Characters:**__ Bruce Banner_

_**Notes**__: Bruce didn't start losing control with The Hulk. He just got more dangerous. Also, in my head there was no Hulk movie in 2003, none at all, absolutely not, and thus Bruce's family background for the MCU is not given. _

Anger's always been something of a trigger for Bruce. It's not something that he's ever had control of; The Other Guy just made him more dangerous. As a kid, it was the classic abuse cycle. His dad would knock lumps out of him, he'd be too small to fight back, rage would boil and fester inside him all night, and then at school the next day he'd take it out on anyone for anything. His own possessions were all broken, when it all got too much at home. Teachers whispered that it was to do with his mother's death, which was probably true, somewhere down the line. He got expelled from four different elementary schools.

His second high school was better, not because he was learning to control his anger, but because puberty had hit and made him big enough to hit back. He became more settled in school, and once he was actually able to focus on his lessons he found them very interesting, especially Science. He managed to win a prize at his Senior Science Fair for a model of the human genome. That night, when he took it home to show off, his dad broke it. Bruce broke his arm. He was winning a lot more fights now that he'd done his own Biology studying and knew the locations of the major pain centres on the human body.

Bruce won a number of prestigious scholarships, left for University and never looked back. He still doesn't know what became of his dad, or even if he's still alive. He suspects that the stalkers at SHIELD know, in the extraordinarily unlikely case that Bruce ever ended up there. He hasn't asked. He doesn't want to know, because if he asks, they'll think Bruce wants to see him. He doesn't, and he doesn't want Shanta to even know about the man that turned Bruce into a monster of rage years before a Gamma overdose did.

When Steve mentions what Doctor Erskine said, that his serum took what was inside and externalized it, Bruce thinks of The Other Guy and The Abomination and wonders if his project wasn't closer to the mark than he thought.


	7. Shawerma For Rhodey

_**Title**__: Shawerma for Rhodey_

_**Words**__: 478_

_**Main Character(s)**__: Tony Stark, James Rhodes, Steve Rogers_

_**Notes**__: Rhodey's glad to hear that Tony's been able to find more than two people who can put up with him. Tony wants his best friend to meet all his new friends. Rhodey has only just got back from a deployment overseas, though, so while he's heard about the Battle of Manhatten he doesn't fully realize just who Tony's new friends are._

"We're out of tables," a young, harried-looking waiter says as James Rhodes steps into the small New York shawerma joint.

"I think I'm expected," Rhodey said, looking around. "Tony Stark..."

"RHODEY! My MAN!"

"Ah, a guest of Mister Stark," the waiter sighs, rushing off towards the kitchen. Rhodey glances away from him just in time to intercept an incoming bear hug from his best friend.

"How's the superheroing going?" Rhodey asks, patting Tony on the back. "I hear tell you're a literal nuclear deterrent these days."

"I don't make a habit of it, the suit's still not properly outfitted for space flight," Tony says, pulling back and leading Rhodey between the tables to an extra-large table at the back, near the kitchen doors. "Just gimme time. Glad you could make it out."

"You guys regulars or somethin'?" Rhodey asks, spotting the eclectic group who are currently watching two huge blond guys trying to fit falafels into their mouths whole.

"This is our thing now," Tony says, producing an empty chair from somewhere. "We have things. It's kinda cool. Guys, lemme introduce you to my best friend, my War Machine, Rhodey!"

"Lt. Col. James Rhodes," Rhodey introduces himself formally. There is a round of "hellos" and some waving from the falafel-faced.

"I'd like you to meet Pepper," Tony says, causing the woman in question to throw some sort of small biscuit at him, "Doctor Bruce Banner..." this guy is also a bit big, probably taller than Rhodey when he isn't hunched over, just dwarfed by the two behemoths having the eating contest. He smiles shyly as he is introduced. "Agent Romanov- may or may not be her real name, I don't think she does real..."

"Natasha," the stunning redhead says, glaring at Tony. He smiles sweetly at her and moves on, pressing Rhodey down into a chair and pushing the biscuits towards him.

"Agent Barton, likewise," he says, indicating a guy in sunglasses who waves at Rhodey over the drink he's sipping. "The gentleman with the very pretty hair would be Thor, and his falafel adversary is Captain Steve Rogers, who you also may have heard of..."

Rhodey manages to be simultaneously embarrassed and honoured to have _Captain America_ perform the Heimlich manoeuvre on him to remove the biscuit that he had started eating at that exact moment. Once assured that his best friend is not going to die, Tony just grins like the idiot he is.

"Easy, soldier," the Captain says, passing Rhodey a glass of water. "You okay?"

"Okay?" Rhodey manages. "Man, I practically joined the army 'cause of you! Hey, if I get Tony to give you one've my old comic books, you wouldn't sign it, would you?"

The Captain looks unaccountably sad for a moment, but then he claps Rhodey on the shoulder. "I guess I can't say no. You outrank me."

Rhodey nearly faints.


	8. Vale 2: Transition

_**Title:**__ Vale: Transition_

_**Word Count**__: 3252_

_**Main Character(s)**__: Vale Lokisson, Narfe Lokisson, Thor Odinsson, Loki Laufeysson, Bruce Banner, Shanta Banner, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Peter Parker, May Parker, Jane Foster, Darcy Lewis, Steve Rogers_

_**Notes:**__ A little more of Vale's story, segueing into a much bigger conflict. Not with any particular subtlety, I'm afraid :P More mythological rambling at the bottom. No ownie on my part for anything._

Once Thor is gone, Clint and Natasha vanish. Steve's sure that one of them is reporting to Fury while the other is spying on Vale, but it'll be impossible to know which until something happens.

Unfortunately, something does.

The only reason that they're not taken completely by surprise is that Bruce is looking after Vale and Shanta, so instead of working in his personal lab Tony is having a lonely huff and checking in with the progress of the others. The scientists watching and monitoring the Ark Reactor in the basement do not respond, and when Tony checks the security camera he sees a lot of people that shouldn't be there. He certainly didn't hire any gunmen as scientists. He isn't sure, but he thinks he sees one appear out of thin air in the split second before something below explodes.

The whole building rocks. The power flickers, and when it reasserts itself Jarvis begins blaring a red alert signal and reeling off damage reports to Tony. Two of the building's major structural supports have been hit, which is why the building is starting to sway.

"We're hit!" he yells, grabbing his earpiece. "Dammit, I thought Fury was keeping tabs on the Ten Rings!"

"_Ten Rings?"_ Steve asks.

"I only got a brief look, but it was a hell of an ethnic mix that you don't get in your bog-standard supremist terrorist cell," Tony says, leaping into the nearest suit closet before the power goes off entirely.

"_Agreed_," he hears Natasha say. "I_'m on the security cameras now. A number of faces match known Ten Rings members. And I'm sorry, Tony, but they've wiped out the lobby and are killing anyone trying to flee down the stairs_."

Another explosion goes off, and the building sways more.

"_Some of them are spreading out into the street_!" Peter yells. The building's shaking stops abruptly. "_I've... nngh... got the place... webbed... from the next... building... _damn, _this is heavy..._"

"_Get all civilian personnel to go up, not down,"_ Steve orders. "_Thor's floor has the highest security just now. If we can't get them out, we need to stabilize the building. Tony, you need to see to the structural integrity of this building NOW. Bruce, suit up and help him out."_

"_I'm on it,_" Bruce says, before disconnecting entirely. Vale and Shanta must be at safety already, or at least unhurt. Tony smashes out a window and flies down, spotting a number of targets spreading out into the street and auto-targeting.

"_Natasha, where are you?_" He hears Steve ask."_We need to work our way down the building, sending civilians up and bad guys to sleep._"

"_Seventeenth floor, south stairwell,"_ Natasha says. "_Bad guys about twelve floors down. I'm on my way._"

Tony spots the Hulk propping up the building between two damaged supports. "How you holdin' up, Pete?" he asks, trying to focus on keeping his welding hand steady while ignoring the bullets pinging off his armour and Hulk's back. Hulk roars angrily. "Because these guys are pissing the big guy off, so he might be able to hold the place up if you're wearing out."

"_I can hold out for a few more minutes, but the webbing's getting strained,_" Peter says. "_You built a helluva big building, Mr Stark._"

"Only place big enough for my ego, they say," Tony quips, firing a number of darts out of his shoulder plates to get rid of a couple of guys with machine guns. Inwardly, he's kicking himself. He spent so much time monitoring Vale that he completely ignored his other security interests. The kid isn't even dangerous.

{}

Pepper does a headcount. It keeps her calm while the floor is swaying under her. Herself, Darcy, Jane, Shanta, Vale, Mrs Parker and twenty-three members of R&D staff from the upper floors. Twelve people from Legal are disgorged from the elevator. The private upper floors are only accessible by lift, for security reasons- the lack of stairs was never considered a fire hazard because of the number of them that could fly and kept small private jets. She's wishing that she'd considered the possibility of having to get a lot of people _in_ rather than _out _before.

She checks the security camera and sees more people congregating in front of the lift on the top R&D floor. The gunmen are still about ten floors below, but they've already killed almost everyone on those floors. Thankfully, Steve and Natasha are on their way down to meet them. They won't be taking out anyone else.

Pepper just wishes she could figure out where they all came from. The cameras to the Ark Reactor have been taken out entirely, but how could all of those men have gotten in there?

Jane has tuned into a link to the Avengers' comms. Tony and Bruce are working on stabilizing the building while Peter covers them; from the sounds of it, the reason that the building has stopped shaking is that the Hulk is holding it up.

The lift doors are just opening again as another explosion rocks the building, and the power goes out entirely.

There's a lot of panicked shouting from the only partially-open lift. Pepper taps at a few computer screens, calling for Jarvis.

"Where's the backup power?" Darcy asks nervously.

"Backup and main power have both been taken out, Miss Potts," says Jarvis' voice from Pepper's phone. "Derivatives of my main AI are still functioning on this phone and in Mr Stark's suit, but I cannot access my main computer."

"Can someone help us open these doors?" a voice calls plaintively from the lift. "They're stuck fast."

"Vale's really strong," Shanta says, patting the Asgardian boy on the back. "He picked up a whole sofa when I lost a marble under it, didn't you?"

"I'll try," Vale mutters shyly, walking over to the lift. He puts his hands into the gap and slowly pulls the heavy lift door aside. Everyone stares at the display of Asgardian strength from the rather slight boy.

"Thank you!" Several people say, looking a little claustrophobic as they spill out into Thor's living room. Vale goes very red.

"Uncle is much stronger," he mutters. He's panting a little with the exertion. "He would not break a sweat."

"No, but he'd probably break the door," Darcy says, giving the boy a hug. "Good job, squirt."

"At least the gunmen won't be able to get in here with no lift," Pepper says.

"Miss Potts, I think you ought to see this..." one of the researchers calls from the window. Pepper runs out onto the balcony and looks down.

A number of the gunmen, apparently abandoning the stairwell, have grappled their way up to the lowest balcony- Bruce's, his floor being directly over R&D. As the first one reaches the balcony, he peers through a window and, seeing nothing, immediately begins to grapple up to the next one.

"Everybody get out of sight of the windows," Pepper orders, knowing that everyone's looking to her to be in charge. "Get into the inside rooms if you can. Lock them if possible. Stay out of sight and don't make a sound!" She prays that the gunman didn't see her looking over the balcony.

Mrs Parker takes Vale and Shanta by the hand and leads them into the nearest bathroom, promising them a game of hide and seek as they climb into the tub and draw the shower curtain. Jane and Darcy are going down a corridor away from the windows. Pepper follows them, suddenly grabbing Jane by the shoulder.

"Jane," she says urgently, "the security around Loki's room was one of the things running on the emergency power."

Jane pales, and she and Darcy bolt down the corridor to Loki's room.

The door is ajar.

{}

"_Support's coming out to you now, Tony,_" Fury says as Tony furiously welded another support beam back together. He had to shift to place himself between the weak metal and a man with a machine gun trying to shoot it apart. Behind him, he hears the _splat_ and disgusted yell of someone getting smacked to the floor by a glob of spider web.

"Why the hell didn't we see this coming?" Tony demands.

"_There's been no large exodus from any of the known Ten Rings camps,_" Fury says. "_Night guards are out same as ever. We let them be because we're waiting for their next weapons shipment to find out where they're gettin' them from these days 'Til then, I got entymologists that are higher on my priorities list. Sorry, Tony. Nobody saw this comin'. How the hell'd they get in your building, anyway?_"

"I'm working on a hypothesis," Tony says. He gestures to Hulk to let the building go. The green giant steps aside with surprising care, and when the building appears to be able to hold itself up, roars and charges down to the Ark Reactor basement. Tony gets to work strengthening the supports.

"_Hostiles ascended out the windows_!" Steve yells. "_They've got some kind of grapples!_"

"_If we head up to the top R&D floor, we can get onto Bruce's balcony from there,_" Natasha responds. "_There's no power, the lifts are out._"

"No more hostiles down here," Tony says, "And the big guy's gone to make sure there won't be any more. Pete, you'll be able to get up there fastest."

"I got it," Peter says, leaping up and rapidly scaling the building. Tony tries to focus on his work, but he's suddenly afraid. They're heading up to Thor's apartment- where _Pepper_ is, and a lot of other innocent people. Thanks to the events of the past month, that flat has some of the best security in the building, but all of that is meaningless without power.

"Aw, _shit_," he says as it hits him.

"_Tony?_" Steve asks. "_What's wrong?_"

"_Do I need to come back down?_" Peter asks nervously.

"Hell no," Tony says sharply before the kid drops back down to him. "Get up there _now_. I think there's already a hostile loose up there."

"_They're not at Thor's balcony just yet,_" Steve says.

"_All_ the power's out," Tony says. "The backups and the backups of the backups, which means that all security's out. Including the _special_ security."

"_You're saying we've got a celestial mass-murderer on the loose,_" Natasha says, "_who probably won't be kept in check by paternal instinct_."

"_Hey, it worked for Darth Vader,_" Peter mutters.

"I'll be up there as soon as I can," Tony promises as fire trucks and police screech up to the base of the tower.

{}

Vale holds tight to Lady Parker's hand. She's kind and soothing, trying to make it all out to be a game, but Vale knows it is not. It is dark, and quiet, and men are coming to kill them. The adults have tried not to say as such to him or Shanta, trying to keep the children innocent, but there has been death already, and so Narfe knows.

There has been much death nearby. Vale can feel his half-sister Hela close, and Narfe is always near to his mind.

Men coming to kill them. Like the angry Asgardians who surrounded him and Narfe, who shouted at them, insults to them, to Father, someone raised weapons to them, they tried to defend themselves with their magic, to escape, somebody reflected their own magic onto Vale-

He buries his head in his hands. He's starting to get frightened, and he feels funny. He tried to summon true Asgardian courage, his grandfather's unflappable bravery, but the people's insults ring in his head, reminding him that his grandfather is not his blood grandfather at all.

"It'll be quite alright, dear," Lady Parker whispers soothingly, smoothing his hair. "Just sit still. The Avengers will handle it."

"Shh!" Shanta hisses. "We are hiding!"

There is a _thump_ outside. A woman peering through the door suddenly _snaps_ it shut.

"They tried smashing through the window!" She whispers, fumbling with the lock in a panic. "One of them had a blowtorch! They're burning through!"

"Oh god, they'll kill us all," a man mutters, burying his head in his hands. Vale thinks of Narfe.

_You can stop them, before they kill you. Send them to Sister Hela. She will see that they get what they deserve._

"I don't want to," Vale whispers.

"What's that, dear?" Lady Parker asks.

_It'll be easy. Only the bad men will go. Lady Parker, and Shanta, and the other kind humans will be safe. You ought to repay them for their kindness. They welcomed you, even knowing what you are. What you _did_. They won't mind. It'll be very easy._

Vale stands up and steps out of the bathtub, pushing past the humans. Suddenly, it is so very easy.

He closes the door behind him, magically sealing it. Until it is opened from the inside, even he will not be able to break through.

{}

Loki's rooms are always dark. Some would accuse him of attempting to be creepy or intimidating. The truth is not so melodramatic. He has nothing to prove to these pathetic ants.

Many people fear the dark due to the irrational fear that there are monsters in it, and turn on lights to prove that this is not so. Loki fears turning the lights on due to the not entirely irrational fear that the monsters will still be there- and will now be able to see him.

After centuries sparring with Thor, Loki is very sensitive to electrical currents. The power to the entire building is gone. With it has gone the music he was listening to. He doesn't like it. Whatever is going on below, he is too far and still too insulated to hear, so he begins to recite a ritual for seeing the future. He doesn't have the power to active it, he simply needs to drown out the sound of his own mind, his own memory.

He doesn't have power, but his senses are still keen, and oh so attuned to _Her_. How could he not know Her? He spent his indeterminable time in the Pit longing for Her. All of them did. He could feel Her the second She appeared down below, and oh, isn't She busy.

They've come for him. That must be the case. Surely the metal man's tower is better constructed than to fall to mere mortals so easily?

In that case, there is no point to staying in this stifling room any longer. It has been too long, too long in this crevice.

There is a flimsy metal lock in the door, but it is the only thing holding it shut. Loki will never be the powerhouse that his meatheaded brother is, but his strength is more than sufficient to deal with this feeble door. For the first time in a year, he steps outside of his room.

There are star maps on the wall, of both Midgard and Asgard. Loki strides past twinkling night skies towards a window that offers only a marginally different vista to the window of his room, but different nonetheless. Midgardian towers stretching to the horizon, looking not too different from the last time that Loki truly surveyed the city, hazed in smoke from the remnants of explosions. Odd that the only things in the sky are helicopters, human artifices.

He peers down at the long drop down, not so long as the fall into the void. Blissfully brief, just long enough to make brief work even of him. It would save them time, and- the thought makes him laugh- deny them the gift of choosing his death for him. Why should he let them control him a moment longer?

He hears three sets of footsteps. Three panicked heartbeats, three tiny gasps of shock and fear. He can almost taste that fear on his lips. How delicious, that even as weakened as he is, he can still provoke such a reaction from these pitiful creatures.

"What a strange state of affairs," he says, glancing over his shoulder at them. The chattery woman, the one who brought Loki the Midgardian entertainment which has done an unexpectedly sufficient job of filling long hours, is clutching the arm of Thor's pet. Stark's woman has stepped in front of them, trying to stand tall and defensive like a ruler, but Loki can feel her fear too, like a tangible thing. "How very unexpected."

"Too bad it's not any of your alien pals, huh?" The talkative one says. It is brave of her indeed to talk to him as such. Brave, but discourteous, and Loki ought not to let her talk as such, but her words are of interest to him. It is not the Chitauri, then, nor any other horror that was conjured for him from the far reaches of the universe.

"And where, pray, are your valiant defenders?" He asks, looking around. He can feel fire spring to life elsewhere on the floor.

"Close to," Stark's woman lies. "Go back to your room, Loki."

"Or what?" Loki laughs, cackling wildly. What does this wench think she can do to _him_? She might think herself a ruler of her little empire, but she is nothing compared to what Loki is by right. Loki turns, towering over the three women. He flexes his fingers, only able to draw a little magic, but he needs no magic to snap their puny necks. It would be so easy, so enticing to feel their lives fade from his grip to his daughter's...

A man, a technician who on Asgard would be fit only to repair children's toys, runs down the hall towards them.

"Ma'am, they're burning through the window," he says urgently. "You need to get to a room with a locking door..." He gawks at the Trickster God. Loki considers plucking his impudent eyes out. "Who the hell is that?"

"Watch your tongue, mortal," Loki snarls sharply, stepping towards them. The women step backwards, startled, preparing to run.

"Vale! VALE!" They hear a woman screaming. The word is enough to distract Loki's attention to greater matters. These worthless _fools_ have left a child of his blood in danger?

Of course, he can feel it now, Vale's magic, learned from Sigyn and from Loki. He has been able to feel it for a month, fluctuating, sometimes failing and incomplete without his brother's powers to complement it, sometimes full and strong. Thor has been asking him, frequently, about Narfe and Vale's abilities, but what is Loki to know of them? He has not seen his youngest children in so very long, since before he knew what he was. Before he knew that he truly was a monster.

It ought to have been obvious long before. Fenrir. Jorgamund. Hela. The trolls. It ought to have long been obvious what Loki was, but the Allfather's lies deceived even him and lead him only to spread the taint of his own blood further. Now he feels Vale's power spike and twist, feels Hela's reach spread, and knows that it is too late for Vale and always has been. At least Narfe left to a more peaceful realm before ever knowing what he was.

The talkative one has turn and run down the corridor. Thor's pet follows, calling her name. Stark's woman looks disquieted to be left almost alone with Loki, stepping back further. She flinches as Loki strides past her. He barely notices. She is unimportant.

There is a high howl, and a cacophony of screaming.

_I'm hoping to go into the events of Angrboda's hall in greater depth later, but I want to explain the reference to troll-children here because it's another legend that has always interested me due to how bizarre and, in a modern context, hilarious it is. Loki was travelling somewhere and came across a fire on which a witch had been burned in another myth. The witch's heart was still sitting in the fire, and Loki was hungry, so he ate it. He became pregnant, and nine months later gave birth to the first trolls (still as a man, which sounds so painful that I don't even want to think about it :x) This makes Loki literally both Trolldad and Trollmom, and also the inventor of mpreg!_

_Long before Tom Hiddleston, Loki was one of my favourite deities partially because of how messed-up most of the myths concerning him are, but also because I found his tricksy, magical solutions to situations to be way more interesting than "Thor kills everything with a hammer, volume 784". What happened to the craftsman who built the walls of Asgard is a prime example. The craftsman wanted to be paid with the sun, moon and the hand of the goddess Freya if he completed the wall in nine seasons. The Aesir agreed, but gave him only three seasons, hoping to not have to pay him. The craftsman agreed, but asked to be allowed to use his giant horse, Svaolifari, to help him. To the surprise of the Aesir, with Svaolifari's help the craftsman made quick time and three days from the deadline looked to be almost finished. The Aesir discussed things and decided that it was Loki's fault (in some versions of the myths, when the craftsman asked for Svaolifari's help, Loki had spoken up on his behalf and convinced the other gods to give him a chance; in others, this didn't happen, and they just decided that it was Loki's fault because things generally were.) They told Loki that if he didn't sort it out they would kill him. So Loki transformed into a beautiful mare and lead Svaolifari to chase him through the forests. The craftsman lost a day's work chasing after Svaolifari, and ended up having to finish the wall on his own while Loki kept Svaolifari distracted. (Loki ended up stuck in the form of a mare for two years while pregnant with Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse.) He finished on time anyway, but then the Aesir discovered that he was a giant from Niflheim and took that excuse to kill him instead of paying him. While Loki's solution didn't work, I always found it more interesting and a lot less dickish than "let's just kill him"._

_A lot of myths about Loki are like that; since crossdressing, having troll babies and using magic was considered less manly than smashing stuff, he tended to get portrayed more negatively than Thor and Odin, even though Odin especially was arguably a tremendous dick in the old myths. I get the feeling that this is how Loki is viewed in MCU!Asgard; it's a warrior society full of people who glorify honourable battle, so Loki's magic and tricksy ways are considered sneaky and dishonourable, so he gets mistrusted and treated badly simply on the basis of being a sorcerer, and he started living down to everyone's expectations. Narfe and Vale probably weren't entirely popular children either, even before it became well-known that their dad was a genocidal psychopath._


	9. Support Group

_**Title**__: Support Group_

_**Words**__: 345_

_**Main Character(s)**__: Peter Parker, Darcy Lewis, The Avengers_

_**Notes**__: Spiderman was one of my favourite superheroes as a kid, so yes, I would love to see him in The Avengers and it's a fairly regular headcanon of mine that he joins :D He might worry about getting involved with the superheroes he's heard so much about, but being a hero doesn't mean being perfect. No ownie._

Peter Parker is excited to be asked to join The Avengers, but he also feels intimidated; he's just a kid that stumbled across superpowers and started fighting crime because he thought it would appease his dead uncle and parents, surrounded by Gods and geniuses and real, bone-deep heroes like Captain America. He lets slip his nervousness to the nice Miss Lewis who greets him at the entrance to Stark Tower and takes him up to see the others. She lets him in on a few secrets.

No matter how much he wants to science-geek out, he's not to ever ask Tony about his father, the legendary Howard Stark. Apparently, Tony's feelings and memories regarding his father are best referred to as "complicated". He's also to ignore any of the alpha-male bickering between him and Steve Rogers, which is apparently related and not as serious as it looks.

Steve's dedication to being a soldier and protector is absolute, and thought to be something to do with the fact that the only thing he seems to really know about his father was that he was a soldier.

Staying out of Thor's floor is advised until he knows the place better, as a few rooms there are home to his insane younger brother, who Peter is not to go near under any circumstances. The word "complicated" also applies here.

Asking about Bruce's family is also not advisable, as the last time somebody did that Bruce had to run off to his "Smash Room" before he Hulked out. This is also a room that Peter is advised to avoid.

Pretty much the only ones he seems welcome to ask about their families are Clint and Natasha, but it is generally agreed that their answers are always flat-out lies.

General policy on families is "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", it seems, and Peter is relieved to know that he doesn't have to try to explain anything concerning his parents or uncle unless he really wants to.

He's also starting to wonder if he's joined a superhero team or a support group.


	10. Forge

_**Title:**__ Forge_

_**Words**__: 2225_

_**Main Character(s)**__: Loki Odinsson, Thor Odinsson, Odin Allfather_

_**Notes**__: I first saw _Thor _as someone more familiar with the original mythology than the comic books, so there were a few things that were a bit of a surprise, but the first shot of Mjolnir in the movie was a particularly nasty jolt. Specifically, the fact that Mjolnir existed when Thor and Loki were both small children, despite some of the very nasty details of the hammer's creation. This fic is how I envisage it happened, but be warned that it involves the mutilation and severe trauma of a young child, so if that's a trigger for you, by all means skip this one. Now ownie._

Eight-year-old Loki was playing alone at the edge of the forests. He wasn't really supposed to, but he'd heard that witches and sorcerers lived there, and he hoped to learn better magic from them. He was good at magic. He wasn't as big or strong as his big brother Thor and wasn't as good at fighting, but he was good at magic. Since hearing about the magic in the forest, he'd snuck off to explore there as often as he could.

He found a house. It was a small house, with a child-sized front door, but with a huge chimney. Loki circled the house a couple of times, trying to peer inside, but the windows were all steamed up. Loki decided to open the door, just a crack, and peek inside.

There were two men sitting at a table, smoking pipes. They both looked around when Loki opened the door, making him close it and back away in panic. Before he could get far enough away, one of them opened the door, reaching out and snatching Loki by the arm.

"What are you doing here, little Asgardian?" The man said. He had a thick beard, like Father's, but he wasn't much taller than Loki himself. He scowled at Loki.

"What is it, brother?" The other man called.

"A little Asgardian rat, Sindri," the man who had Loki called back.

"You're dwarves, aren't you?" Loki said curiously, trying to wriggle out of the man's grip. "I didn't know dwarves lived here."

"Looks to me like there's plenty you don't know, boy," the dwarf said rudely. Loki scowled.

"You should choose your words more carefully, dwarf," he said, standing still and drawing himself up taller. "I am Loki, son of Odin, King of Asgard."

"And I am Brokkr, brother of Sindri, the finest blacksmith in the woods, and I don't care," Brokkr said, giving him a push. Inside the house, Sindri laughed. Loki brushed himself off as he got back to his feet, in a huff.

"Fine blacksmith?" He said derisively. "The Sons of Ivaldi are the finest blacksmiths in the Nine Realms, they say, and I think it is true. Freyr's ship and Father's spear are both wondrous things, which I am sure you could not create the equal of!"

"The Sons of Ivaldi?" Sindri laughed. "To be sure, they can whore themselves out for trinkets, but I am offended that you consider _them_ skilled!"

"Well, can you make better things than them or can't you?" Loki said, crossing his arms. "I bet you can't."

Brokkr crossed his own arms, leaning down a little to be nose-to-nose with Loki. "And I would bet on my brother's skills any day," he said. "What would you bet, little Asgardian?"

"I'd bet my head!" Loki said firmly.

"So would I," Brokkr said with a nasty grin. "Three days, three things, and if none are finer than the junk of the Sons of Ivaldi, my head is yours. But if they are finer, as they shall be..." He flicked his finger across Loki's throat, making the child recoil.

"Fine," Loki said. "You have my word!" He didn't think anything of the childish bet; he was certain that his father's Gungnir was the finest thing that had ever been made, and that no stupid dwarves that lived in the forest would be able to match it.

{}

The next two days, he was unable to sneak out to the forest to play, so he bewitched flies to go bite the dwarves for him to distract them, just to make sure. He hadn't actually seen anything made by the two dwarf brothers before, so it struck him that he couldn't be sure how fine their work was. He told Thor in secret about the trip and the bet, and Thor agreed that there was nothing finer than Gungnir. He had never seen anything created by the brothers either, though, so he made Loki promise to bring Thor with him when he last went to see the brothers.

Loki agreed to bring Thor with him on the fourth day. To him, as a child, the only person stronger than his big brother was Odin himself.

On the third day, Loki snuck out alone and turned into a fly himself to go see the dwarves, for no other reason that he could. He had come to the talent of shapeshifting only recently, and like any child with a new trick did it as much as he possibly could. He was frightened by what he saw.

Brokkr stood at the bellows, working steadily despite the swollen fly bites on his hands and neck. Sindri was turning some large instrument over in the fire. On their table nearby sat a huge, glowing golden boar and a shining golden ring. The things were indeed fine and beautiful, and Loki got afraid that they'd be judged as such. He slipped through a crack in the door and began annoying Brokkr, hoping to distract him and damage whatever Sindri was working at, but Brokkr steadily ignored him. In desperation, he bit at Brokkr's eye until it filled with blood. Brokkr finally stepped back from the bellows, trying to swat Loki away in frustration.

"Brokkr!" Sindri yelled angrily. "The bellows! Agh, too late," he complained, drawing the item out of the fire. It was a hammer. "The weight's off, now."

"Sorry, brother," Brokkr said, chagrined. He wiped blood out of his eye and Loki flew away, sure that he'd won the bet.

{}

"I can't believe you got out to the _forest_ without saying anything," Thor complained, following Loki through the trees and looking around curiously, an excited grin on his face.

"Well, we're not supposed to, really," Loki muttered.

"Ha! We are princes of Asgard!" Thor declared. "We decide what we are and are not to do!"

"Okay," Loki giggled. "It's this way." He pointed the way to the dwarf brothers' home.

"Why don't they live in Asgard, anyway?" Thor complains. "Kinda silly to live out here when there's Asgard to live in."

"We are not interested in living among arrogant Asgardians with no respect for true craft," said the dwarf standing outside the door, waiting for them. He had a bandage over one eye; Brokkr. "You are not in Asgard now, little one. You are on our land."

"Little?" Thor laughed. "You are hardly taller than we!"

"Aye, but my hands are larger and stronger than your skulls," Brokkr sneered, hovering his bitten hands over Loki and Thor's head. They were _big_ hands, so Loki grabbed Thor's arm and tugged him inside.

"C'mon, brother," he said, "let's see what they've made."

The beautiful golden boar was snuffling around the table, and the ring and hammer were still sitting on its surface. Thor, as ever, spoke without thought.

"Wow!" he exclaimed, staring at the boar. "It's _alive_! You made a thing that's _alive_!"

"It is a fine thing, no?" Sindri said, with a nasty look at Loki. "Its name is Gullinbursti. The ring, Draupnir, will produce eight new rings every nine days."

"Woooooow," Thor breathed, his eyes as wide as the ring.

"Brother..." Loki whispered. The brothers were giving him a very nasty couple of looks.

"That looks cool too, what's that do?" Thor said, pointing at the hammer.

"That is Mjolnir," Sindri said proudly. "It will always return to its owner's hand..."

"I think the boy has agreed that these are fine things indeed," Brokkr said, "and he seems a fair judge to me. So, little rat, the bet must be settled, and we must have your head!"

"What?" Thor said, startled. Loki hadn't told him about the bet.

"I was joking," Loki said nervously. "I just wanted to see if you could do it..."

"You gave your word, little rat," Brokkr sneered, grabbing Loki's arm.

"Do not lay hands upon my brother!" Loki shouted, leaping at Brokkr, but Sindri grabbed him by the arms and threw him aside. A grown dwarf's strength was more than a match for an Asgardian child.

"Let me go!" Loki screamed as Brokkr grabbed both arms. "You can't take my head!"

"And why not?" Sindri said, approaching him with a large axe.

"Because... because how are you going to take it," Loki said quickly, "without cutting my neck?"

"The neck was rather how I was planning to do it," Sindri sneered.

"But my neck wasn't a part of the deal," Loki said. "You can't take my head without hurting my neck. That'd break the deal. You're a great craftsman, right? You wouldn't take more than you're owed."

Sindri scowled. "Such a quick tongue, little rat," he said. "We ought to do something about that, ought'n't we, brother?"

"Yes, indeed, brother," Brokkr said nastily, slamming Loki down on the table and holding him down firm. Sindri set down the axe and delicately picked up a large needle and thread.

"No!" Loki screamed. "Let me go! Brother, help!"

He looked around wildly. Thor was gone.

Real panic hit Loki. He wanted to cry. His brother had _abandoned_ him, he'd made a _stupid_ bet and the dwarves were going to _hurt_ him and he needed to shapeshift he needed to shift _now_ but he _couldn't_, he had to _focus_ to do it and he was panicking and the needle was _big_-

Sindri grabbed Loki's chin with one hand, and with the other, pushed the needled through Loki's lips and began to sew them together. Loki tried to scream in agony, but it just made his lips hurt even more as the coarse thread was pulled through them, again and again, forcing shut his lips and it _hurt_, _it hurt, HELP-_

Sindri dropped the needle abruptly as he was thrust aside, hard enough to smash into the wall. Brokkr looked up from Loki just in time for the butt of Gungnir to wipe the sneer off of his face.

Loki curled up, clutching his limps and whimpering mutely.

"Brutal creatures!" Odin roared. "I care not for what deals you claim to have struck! To take a child's games to the point of mutilation?"

"Loki!" Thor yelled, running over and hauling himself up onto the table. The boar, Gullinbursti, squealed as a pair of Asgardian guards grabbed each of the dwarf brothers and hauled them away. "I'm sorry, brother," Thor said, starting to cry when he saw Loki's bleeding, damaged lips. "I tried to grab that hammer they made, to fight them, but I couldn't, I'm _really_ sorry, I went and got Father..." he went quiet sharply as Odin pulled him aside.

"You boys ought not to have come out here alone," Odin said sternly. "Thor, you should not have encouraged your little brother to do so. Shame on you."

"I'm sorry, Father," Thor sobbed. "I'm so sorry, Loki."

"I know you are," Odin said, more gently, picking up Loki in his arms, gently touching his lips with a sorrowful expression on his face. Loki whimpered in pain, tears streaming down his cheeks, and curled up against his Father in the hope that he could make it alright.

{}

"It is forbidden for children to go into that forest," Odin said, standing over Thor, who held his brother's hand while Frigga gently removed the string from his lips and rubbing healing salve into the wounds. "You knew that. Why did you go?"

"I didn't know what it was like," Thor muttered, looking down. "I'm sorry, Father."

"A child's curiosity," Odin growled, running a hand through his hair. "The people and creatures that live in that forest are dangerous, Thor, because many do not consider themselves subject to the laws of Asgard. The Citadel's edges will be better guarded now, and I must see to a craftsman who can build us a wall."

"Is that necessary?" Frigga said, glancing up momentarily from her work over her younger son. "Asgard has never needed such defences before, even during the war with Jotunheim."

"It is clearly needed to keep in as sorely as to keep out," Odin said. "Loki is not the first child to have been harmed in the forest, and increased guards clearly do not serve that purpose sufficiently." He stepped closer to Loki, looking down sadly at him.

"I am very disappointed in you," he said. "In both of you, for doing something so dangerous."

"I'm sorry, Father," Thor whispered again.

"'M s'rry, F'th'r," Loki whimpered through his damaged lips. Frigga placed a finger to them, shushing him.

{}

The ring Draupnir was placed in the vaults of Asgard, where it made the kingdom richer than ever. The boar Gullinbursti took well to Freyr and lived with him, even pulling his chariot for him. Mjolnir was placed in the vaults, and Thor worked and trained until he was strong enough to lift it.

It hurt him that, for once, he hadn't been able to save his brother on his own, and was determined to become strong enough to defend anyone. He did not want to fail again.

Loki knew, later, that his brother had been too young to help him, that his great disappointment was unjustified. It didn't change the fact that the very sight of Mjolnir or Gullinbursti caused his lips to hurt. What hurt even more, in his memory, was his father's disappointment, which he'd never truly felt before, and never wanted to feel again.

_In the original myth, Loki and Thor are adults by this point, as the reason the brothers made three treasures was to match the three made by the Sons of Ivaldi; the foldable boat Skidbladnir, Odin's spear Gungnir, and Sif's golden hair, which they made for her after Loki cut it off and Thor forced Loki to get her a replacement. For various reasons, that story has not and probably won't happen in this universe. In the myth, Loki gets into an argument with the dwarves and bets his head with Brokkr that Sindri cannot make finer treasures, and a fly which is implied to be Loki himself bothers Brokkr all three days. The bite on Brokkr's eyelid causes the handle of Mjolnir to be too short, leading to Thor having to have special gauntlets forged so that he can lift it, but the handle of the MCU!Mjolnir seems to be just fine so I threw in a random line about the weight being off and left it at that :P_

_And yes, they do sew Loki's lips together when he talks them out of taking his head, which Loki's muzzle at the end of _The Avengers _may or may not be a reference to. That story pretty much traumatized _me _the first time I read it as a child, so it cannot have done good things to Loki's mind, and I can't imagine that the sight of Mjolnir brings up happy memories for him. _


	11. It's Personal

_**Title**__: It's Personal_

_**Words**__: 707_

_**Main Characters:**__ Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Obadiah Stane_

_**Notes**__: Finding the young CEO of Stark Industries a competent PA is not easy, especially when you're not really trying. Thankfully, Tony is, in his own special way. _

When Tony Stark turned 21, he was anointed the new CEO of Stark Industries, as per Howard Stark's will. Obadiah offered to find him a PA to handle most of the running of the company; after all, Tony's primary skills and interests were mechanics, not business.

The first six all ended up in bed with Tony inside of a week. The seventh was there at the end of the first day. Tony always fired them straight away, always on the basis that they were "incompetent". Well, their competency in handling his company would probably be challenged if they had personal issues with Tony sleeping around, which he fully intended to continue doing.

(He never really thought about the fact that Obadiah continued to send him attractive female PAs rather than taking the simple solution and hiring a male one.)

The eighth candidate is a tall, slim redhead called Virginia. Tony starts laying on the moves almost automatically. She doesn't respond to any of it, sometimes offering him a professional smile as she brushes him off and nothing more. She doesn't leave her bedroom door invitingly unlocked when she goes to bed or gets in the shower. She deftly avoids falling for any of his seduction, so after an unusually productive week, he tries the trick that Two, Four and Five all fell straight for; the Drunken Groping.

They probably went for it on the basis that he wouldn't remember it in the morning, but the thing about Tony Stark is that, no matter how drunk he actually is, he only ever appears as drunk as he wants to. It's a trick that got him through most of his teen years.

She ignores his drunken babbling about how lovely she is and how much he needs her, waves off all of his attempts to offer her a drink, and when he slumps down next to her and drapes an arm over her shoulders, she gets up and starts tidying away some paperwork, complaining that she's clearly not going to get a valid signature on them tonight.

"C'mooooon, misssissiz Pottssssssss," he slurs, giggling. "Wasssup? Don' you like me?"

"Sir, if you just want a bedwarmer, there are special numbers you can call," she says calmly. "That's not what I get paid for. I get paid for my diploma in business management, although I'm starting to think that I was hired based on the babysitting I did in high school."

"Yerrreallll funny, Miz Potts... Potts, Pots, salt-'n'-pepper pots..." he sings, swaying as he staggers to his feet. "Which one're you? Salt 'r Pepper?"

Without warning, he grabs her and kisses her full on the mouth. It's generally the killing blow, and very nearly is- for him. The slap almost knocks him off his feet.

"Def'nitely Pepper," he mutters, rubbing his jaw. "Awww, not th' face..."

"I think it's time for you to go to bed, sir," she says firmly. "On your _own_."

"G'night, Pepper Potts!" Tony calls, wandering off.

Before he goes to sleep, he calls Obadiah and tells him they've got a keeper.

The next morning, he offers her a permanent position. She's a little suspicious, but she accepts, stating how relieved she is not to be job hunting anymore.

"Though I'll still quite if you can't keep things strictly professional, sir," she warns, looking through the contract papers he's given her.

"I swear I won't try to kiss you again," Tony says with a grin, "unless you want me to..."

"Hmm, these give me free access to and control over your major bank accounts," she says innocently. Tony raises his hands in surrender.

"Talk to Oby if there's anything you don't understand," he says, "'cause I probably don't understand it either. And please, y'know, call me Tony... all that "Mr Stark" stuff is kinda prim. A little kinky, I guess, if you're into that..."

"Will that be all, Mr Stark?" She says pointedly. "I'd like to organize to have my things shipped so I can move into my rooms tomorrow."

"Sure thing," Tony says with a wink. "Welcome aboard, Pepper." She just turns and strides out of the room.

It's three years before she starts calling him Tony, sometimes, and twelve before she lets him kiss her again.


	12. Vale 3: Monsters

_**Title**__: Vale: Monsters_

_**Words**__: 2838_

_**Main Character(s)**__: Vale Lokisson, Narfe Lokisson, Loki Laufeysson, Thor Odinsson, Peter Parker, Natasha Romanov, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Darcy Lewis, Nick Fury, Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton, Steve Rogers_

_**Notes**__: The wake of the attack leaves everyone with questions, not least concerning Loki and Vale, and possibly only Thor's trip home holds the answers. No mythological notes for this one because I haven't invoked any new myths. No ownie._

Peter panics as he hears screaming erupt above. Natasha is scrambling from Bruce's balcony to her own, and Peter throws up a web to Thor's to pull himself up faster, cursing himself for being too late.

The scene is not what he expects at all. There is blood and dead bodies are strewn across the floor, but they all seem to be gunmen. And in the middle of it all is a giant wolf, ripping a man's head from his body. Two gunmen are still alive and they open fire on the great wolf. The bullets seem to have no effect, other than making the wolf turn on them. Peter is frozen in horror as they are ripped apart.

He can see Jane and Darcy also frozen and staring. Jane has a hand over her mouth as if she's going to puke. A tall, dark-haired man in odd clothes strides past them, heading towards the wolf. It takes Peter a moment to recognize him as Loki, Thor's brother, whom he saw for the first time when Thor was informing him of Vale's arrival. Peter tenses, wondering if his spider webs can hold Loki and the wolf down.

The wolf, smelling new prey, turns and leaps on Loki. Loki thrusts up his arm and the wolf's jaws sink into it. Loki does not flinch from the powerful bite that ripped men apart, and by all rights should have taken his arm off. He does not react as the wolf snarls and worries at his arm.

"Be not a fool, Vale," he says sharply. "Or do you desire to be a monster, and receive a fitting fate?"

The wolf pauses. Peter can't help staring at the blood pouring from its mouth, soaking into the carpet. As it stills, Loki places his other hand on the wolf's forehead, his palm glowing green.

The wolf's eyes drift closed, and it shrinks as it slumps to the floor, becoming a sleeping humanoid child. _Vale_.

There is a groan from one of the mangled men on the floor. Loki looks down at the man in disgust, and then sharply stamps on the man's neck, killing him with a horrific _crack_. Jane and Darcy both scream in disgust and Pepper turns away, hands slammed over her mouth. Peter snaps out of it and slams Loki into the opposite wall with two blasts of web.

"_What the hell's going on, Pete_?" Tony says, flying over the balcony with Natasha.

"Bohze moi," she mutters, staring at the carnage, and then narrowing her eyes on Loki.

"Tony!" Pepper says, pointing to the centre of the carnage, where Vale is lying curled on the blood-soaked floor. She is trying to walk over to him, but her revulsion at the mangled bodies clearly has her on the edge of vomiting. "Vale..."

"What happened to him?" Natasha says sharply, striding through the bodies with little sign of disgust beyond a slight wrinkle to her nose to scoop the boy up. She grabs a blood-splattered quilt from the back of one of Thor's couches to wrap him in. "What did Loki do?"

"I did nothing," Loki said, glaring from her to Peter in disdain. There is sweat on his forehead. "Nothing but waste what little power I have regained because you worthless ants failed."

"I think he only killed one guy," Peter says. "Vale... the kid was a wolf when I got up here, Tony... Loki changed him back."

There is a sudden banging. Peter looks over to see a bathroom door beginning to shake as a green glow fades from the lock. It bursts open a moment later, and several people burst out, almost tripping over themselves as they stop short of the carnage.

"Oh my god," Aunt May shrieks, immediately leaning over Shanta to cover her eyes. A couple of people run back into the bathroom to puke.

"_Don't think he's going anywhere, Pete,_" Tony says, stepping over to Loki. Peter nods, flicking his wrist to disconnect the web and running over to comfort his aunt.

The power flickers back on. "_Guys, this is Bruce_," comes Doctor Banner's tired voice. "_I managed to get some of the power lines reconnected. SHIELD cleanup teams are here, they're going to send up jets to evacuate people..." _the comm crackles as he yawns hugely.

"_Thank you,_" Steve says. "_I've got prisoners..._" he starts relaying directions to SHIELD.

"_Shanta?_" Bruce interrupts. "_Are the civilians okay?_"

"Alive and unhurt," Natasha promises, switching off her comm before muttering to herself, "probably just traumatized for life..."

Loki is glaring at Natasha with an expression of utter hatred. Blood is soaking through the spider web holding him down.

{}

"I want to know where and how they got a goddamn teleport device," Fury says, half into his comm to the helicarrier and half to the Avengers congregated in Tony's bar.

"I want to know when the hell Dr Scargot met the Ten Rings," Tony says. "I do actually check for shit like that when I hire people, _especially_ to look after my damn Ark Reactor. Far as I can tell, they all came out at the same precise point, so they must've had coordinates. Or a second device that links to the first, but I haven't had a chance to shift through all of the machine parts on the floor down there... between the explosions to the power lines and the big guy, a lot of stuff got broken. We're working on it."

"And I hear tell Thor's little nephew went monster," Fury adds. A few Looks are thrown in Cint and Natasha's direction, which they pointedly ignore.

"He's asleep just now," Peter says. "I dunno if it's Loki's sleep spell or just that changing wore him out. Aunt May said he locked a bunch of the civilians into a bathroom before he changed, so he only really hurt the bad guys... Loki stopped him."

"It's a creepy thing to say, but Loki might have saved our lives," Pepper admits. "Vale didn't stop or change back straight away on his own. He went straight for the nearest target- Loki. He's got a really nasty bite on his arm for it."

"I suppose I could have a look at that," Bruce says, rubbing the back of his head. Transforming into the Hulk doesn't take quite as much out of him as it once did, but it still tends to wear him out and he's been tanking coffee steadily ever since hearing that Fury was coming down personally. "I'm working on getting qualified as a medical doctor, might as well get some practice in. I guess we owe him for stopping Vale. Though we also owe Vale for killing the bad guys. He saved Shanta's life, among others, by doing that."

"He also killed a lot of people," Natasha points out. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but we got lucky that Loki was out... what if he hadn't been there, and the closest target had been Jane, or Pepper?"

Tony clenches his fist involuntarily, sickened by the thought that he might just owe his fiancée's life to _Loki_. "I know Vale's just seemed like a sad kid over the past month," he says, "but I saw those men when the bodies were fresh. I don't like the thought that we've got somebody who can do that and can only be stopped by _Loki_ in my house."

"Yeah, because you've never let a dangerous monster into your house before," Bruce says wryly. Tony flinches.

"I didn't mean-" he begins, but Bruce waves him off.

"I know you didn't," he says mildly. "Just something to keep in mind, is what I'm saying."

"Thor thought he wouldn't change again," Steve says. "As soon as he gets back, we'll need to talk to him about this. If he's going back to Asgard, they'll need to know about it so they can deal with it. If not, maybe Bruce can work with him."

"It's true that it could have been a self-defence mechanism like the Hulk," Clint says. "When faced with an enemy he couldn't fight and couldn't escape, he had a third reaction."

"I'll see what I can do when he wakes up," Bruce says, standing up and rolling up his sleeves. "After I check on Shanta and see to Loki's arm. Work, work, work..." he ambles out of the room.

"...Officially, that kid ain't even here," Fury says quietly. "I kept it on the down-low from the WSC 'cause reports were he wasn't dangerous. If even one of your people talks about what went down up there, Tony, and the WSC hear, we're all gonna catch hell and they're gonna want to deal with him themselves."

"Hell, the only reason they eventually shut up about Loki was we proved he had no more power in him," Clint adds, "so if they hear he's working a little magic again, it's gonna go all kinds of bad."

"I'll talk to the staff," Pepper says to Tony, getting up. "I already convinced them to leave out what happened upstairs when giving their statements. I'll make it clear that their jobs are on the line if they talk."

"I ever tell you you're brilliant?" Tony says, giving her a kiss before she goes. "I mean, I know I tell people plenty that _I'm_ brilliant, but I need to say it just as much about you."

"You know, you really should," Pepper says, leaving. Tony looks back at Fury.

"I don't completely trust the kid, but he might not be our problem for too much longer," he says. "Thor went back to Asgard to find his mom. She oughta be able to fix him up. Until then, Fury, it'd be a _huge_ favour if you kept this quiet."

Fury sighed heavily. "I keep most of what you guys're up to quiet because I trust you-"

"And you have spies in our homes!" Tony adds, winking at Clint and Natasha.

"- and I've got bigger fish to fry figurin' out where the hell the Ten Rings are gettin' weapons and goddamn teleporters, so for now, this info ain't leavin' this building. But I'm trustin' you to fix this, to do me a favour and do just that."

"Yes sir," Steve says. Tony gets up.

"Well then, I'm gonna get back to fixing my building," he says. "Jarvis, keep an eye out for Vale waking up and Thor getting back and let me know one way or the other, got it?"

"Romanov, I could use your interrogation abilities," Fury says to the spy. "You comin'?"

"Yes, sir," Natasha says, following her out of the room. Truth be told, she can't get out of the building fast enough. Clint follows. He has a report to finish, and he needs some new arrowheads. Probably some of the explosive ones.

{}

"You gonna let me look at that arm?" Bruce asks casually, standing next to Loki with his hands in his pockets. Loki is reading an HP Lovecraft novel and does not look up or acknowledge Bruce's presence, though his left sleeve is heavy with blood and his fingers are twitching. Bloody fingerprints are smeared on the cover of the book. Bruce waits a few more moments, then reaches down to grab Loki's wrist. Loki shakes him off roughly, dropping the book onto the floor.

"Touch me not, creature," he spits out. Bruce allows the insult to prod him a little closer to The Other Guy, making his grip far stronger. When he grabs Loki's arm again, the tired god cannot break free. "_Release_ me!"

"Just let me look at it," Bruce says, pulling up Loki's sleeve. "Peter said he heard that bite scraping at the bo-"

He stops and stares, distracted enough that Loki slips his grip and furiously pushes him back, hard enough to knock Bruce over.

"Leave me, beast!" Loki snarls, utterly incensed. "What is this pitiful kindness? Do you intend to try to _help_ Vale, too? Knowing that, at any moment, he will change again, and who will he kill next? Those women? That insect boy? The little girl of yours? Next time he chooses the monster, I will not bother to stop him!"

Bruce leaves the room. Loki's threat against Shanta has pushed dangerously at his already tenuous control. He breathes deeply, focusing on his breathing techniques, and tries to focus on something clinical. Analysis of Loki's wound, as if it's a hypothetical problem in a textbook.

Dog bite. Large bite radius, a good eight inches. Deep bites, penetrating the epidermis and reaching the bone. Severe bleeding, to a level that would be dangerous to a human, though subject is not human so blood replenishment rate is unknown. Patient shows signs of fatigue, but could be mental fatigue from straining magical abilities. _That factor probably won't be on any exams._

Secondary wound noted, previous injury, extends from lower arm to inside elbow and may continue to upper arm. Analyze that, what kind of wound is it, beneath the discolouration, what was the injury that Loki tried to hide...

{}

Vale can feel the dream fading as he wakes up. He doesn't want it to. He likes the dream. He's home, with Mother and Narfe. Father isn't there, though. He was busy, because he was King for a while when Grandfather was asleep and Uncle Thor was gone, but then when Grandfather came back Father didn't.

Vale looks around for the door, hoping that Father will be back soon. All he sees is a mirror. He can feel Narfe's hand clutched in his, but in the mirror, Narfe's head is clutched in his jaws.

Vale's eyes snap open. He doesn't want to be in that dream anymore.

"Hi, Vale," Lady Darcy says. She is sitting next to his bed, tapping away at a computer. Behind her are two guards, standing by the door. Vale is sure that they are guards, because they are wearing the same clothes and have Midgardian weapons strapped to them. They are here because Vale is dangerous. Because he's a monster.

Vale shies away, pulling the sheet over his head. He can remember, a little, because this time he did it on purpose. He can remember screaming, and his throat tastes of blood.

"_Be not a fool, Vale. Or do you desire to be a monster, and receive a fitting fate?"_

"It's okay, Vale," Lady Darcy says, touching his shoulder and trying to gently tug the blanket away. "It's all okay now. Only the bad guys got hurt."

Vale peeks out. "I hurt them," he says quietly. "Did I rip them apart, like Narfe?"

Darcy flinches. "Don't worry about it," she insists, tapping the computer again. They're in every room here, and they remind him of his mother's pool. When the right spells are recited, other people and places can be seen in it. Here, Lady Darcy calls upon Lord Jarvis to contact Bruce. Vale looks at the guards, who are watching him closely. They must know what he is; would a mere child really warrant such suspicion?

"Lady Darcy?" Vale asks. "How did I stop? Before, they said that Grandfather stopped me. Is Grandfather here?"

"No, but your uncle'll be back soon," Lady Darcy says brightly. "And Shanta's daddy wants to talk to you. He's going to help you, until it's time for you to go home."

"I can't go home," Vale whispers. "I killed Narfe there. They won't let me back. Mother doesn't want to see me, because I did terrible things. Like... like Father. They said that he did bad things, too."

"You're nothing like him, Vale," Lady Darcy says sharply. "I don't know what anyone told you about your dad, but you're nowhere _near_ as bad as him. Seriously, you're a nice kid." She pats him on the shoulder. "Sure surprised me to find that a nice kid like you was _Loki_'s son."

"Nobody will tell me really what Father did," Vale admits. "They won't tell me because I'm a kid. But Narfe and I, we had hiding places, and we heard adults whispering. That Father did terrible things. That he was a monster, and not even a son of Odin, really."

Lady Darcy sighs. "I don't know, kiddo," she says. "I got no idea what's goin' on in Asgard, but I promise, _I_ don't think you're bad, okay? I promise."

Vale nods, grateful. If she has given her word, she must believe it. It does not mean that it's true, but she believes it.

Vale wants his uncle. Uncle Thor has been kind to him, even when Mother doesn't want to see him. He wants to ask him about Father. He wants to know if Father is a monster. He wants to know if Father thinks _he_ is a monster.

Most of all, he wants things to go back to the way they were when he and Narfe were small, Father was there and Mother was happy, but now it all feels like a lie. Monsters don't get peace.

_My mythology feels have crossbred with my Avengers feels and the resultant eight-legged horse baby plunnies are rampaging out of control. _


	13. Brothers In Arms

_**Title**__: Brothers In Arms_

_**Words**__: 445_

_**Main Characters:**__ Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes_

_**Notes**__: Steve never stops believing in fighting back and doing what's right. It just gets a little easier to do when he has a friend by his side._

Steve Roger's mom dies when he's five years old. He's too young to remember too much about her. Only two things really stand out.

One was that she was a nurse, and worked a lot, and when she was home neighbours were always coming to her for help that they couldn't afford from a hospital. No matter how tired she was, she never turned them away. She was always helping people.

The other was that she often told him stories about his father. Steve doesn't remember him, because he died before Steve was born, fighting to protect people in a faraway country called Europe. His mother said that he was one of the bravest soldiers in the 107th infantry. Ever since he can remember, Steve has wanted to be a soldier like him.

In retrospect, the orphanage was a good place to start, because it's a battleground.

Every child in there has been abandoned, or left behind. Everyone has something to prove, and small, skinny Steve is an easy target, especially since he never runs away.

When Steve is ten, he suddenly gets an ally and protector in the form of a new kid, James, who is immediately appointed the moniker "Bucky" by other children for his front teeth. Steve thinks it's still better than "Scrawny Stevie". At least the teeth will soon fall out and be replaced by better ones.

Bucky is actually two years younger than Steve, but he's taller so people often think he's older. Steve is friendly to him when he first arrives, because he always wants the new kids to feel less vulnerable. He does this even though he's already sure that, the next time Steve gets in a fight, Bucky will side against him, because in the end the fastest way for a child to feel stronger is to make someone else feel weaker.

To his surprise, Bucky doesn't. Bucky leaps to his defence and turns out to be a tough enough fighter to send Big Jimmy packing. Suddenly, Steve has a friend.

Bucky's dad was in the 107th, too. He died when Bucky was quite small, of illness, but he taught Bucky a few things about fighting first. Both boys want to be in the army like their dads someday. Steve's sure that they're destined to be comrades in arms. Bucky, who generally finishes fights for Steve, sees it differently.

"My little brother got hit by the same taxi as my mom," he confides. "He was kinda like you." He grins, baring the buck teeth. "Y'know, scrawny. And kinda dumb."

"Just like you?" Steve retorts. When Bucky laughs, Steve knows that they're best friends, and always will be.


	14. Drunks

_**Title:**__ Drunks_

_**Words: **__246_

_**Main Character(s)**__: Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Thor Odinsson, Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton, Bruce Banner_

_**Notes**__: Between Thor and Tony, the Avengers go drinking together a lot. As usual, they're all very different, while still looking after each other._

Tony is a happy, hyperactive drunk. This surprises nobody, not least because they've all been on YouTube, even Steve, who is addicted to cat videos.

Steve himself cannot get drunk. Even a lethal quantity of absinthe does nothing for him but make him a little thirsty. Steve is conspiring with Thor to get some Aesirmead.

Thor also plans to bring the mead for himself. Midgardian alcohol is much weaker than the drink he's used to, and he cannot understand the purpose of little paper umbrellas at all.

Natasha is unaccountably fond of them when drunk. She gets a little softer, and very giggly, when drunk, though it takes her a long while to get there. Despite being giggly, she retains enough presence of mind to swiftly steal and delete any photos taken of her or Barton while drunk. Tony often accuses her of acting it up.

Clint does it too, though nobody's sure how because he's the most "down" drunk. He ends up hugging people and mumbling about how he loves them all really and they're his best friends, when not downing fifteen shots a minute. He tends to wake up at the top of trees or on roofs in the morning.

Bruce is also a lethargic drunk. In fact, he falls asleep. Thor or Steve have to carry him home, because he's heavier than can be believed. Tony sometimes mutters about weight to mass ratios, before being dragged off to his own bed by Pepper.


	15. Two Kings

_**Title**__: Two Kings_

_**Words**__: 181_

_**Main Character(s):**__ Thor Odinsson, Loki Odinsson_

_**Notes**__: When they are children, Thor and Loki make a pact that cannot be kept. _

When they are children, Thor and Loki's play-fights often revolve around who will be King of Asgard. Loki often loses, so he proposes an alternative.

"Why don't we both be King?" He suggests. Thor makes a face and shakes his head.

"You can't have two Kings!" He laughs.

"You can't? Why not?" Loki asks, frowning. Thor mirrors his frown.

"Dunno," he says. "'Cause you can't. But y'know, the King gets to say what you can and can't do." He grins brightly. "Here's an idea! Whichever one of us gets to be King decides that there can be two Kings. Nobody'll be able to complain 'cause you can't argue with the King. Then we both get to be King!"

"Promise?" Loki says. Thor raises his fist and Loki bumps his against it.

"Promise!" Thor says brightly.

Loki desperately hopes that the promise is true, because at a young age he can already tell that Thor will be a King like he can never be. It isn't jealousy, not yet, but there's a hurt that he doesn't quite understand and won't go away.

_After I finished typing this, "King" stopped looking like a word to me._


	16. Vale 4: Unveiling

_**Title**__: Vale: Unveiling_

_**Words**__: 3130_

_**Main Character(s)**__: Vale Lokisson, Narfe Lokisson, Loki Laufeysson, Thor Odinsson, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, Jane Foster_

_**Notes**__: Thor makes some unpleasant discoveries when he returns from Asgard. No ownie._

"There we go," Tony says as the sky over New York is abruptly covered with heavy clouds full of pulsating light. Steve reaching Thor's flat before Tony does, and Peter and Bruce both appear before Thor appears in a strike of lightning.

"What happened here?" Thor says, taking in the blood-soaked room. Tony's had the bodies removed, but prevented the cleaning crew from coming in until Thor sees the magnitude of what just happened. It's also a good reason to keep Vale in his room; panicking him with the remnants of the carnage he caused will probably do him no good.

"I thought you said Vale wouldn't transform anymore," Steve says sternly. Thor goes white.

"Who did he kill?" he whispers.

"Luckily, it was only the terrorists that attacked the building," Peter says. "He didn't hurt any of the good guys. Well, Loki got a pretty bad bite on his arm too…"

"He freaked out when I tried to look at it," Bruce says. "I think it's because of the scarring on his arm."

Thor's brow furrows. "Scarring?" He asks. "What do you mean?"

"You're gonna have to ask him that," Tony says. "What's gonna happen about Vale?"

"His mother will come for him soon," Thor says, walking around the blood-soaked floor. "When her mourning for Narfe has ended. Until then…" he rubs his chin. "Is he still a wolf?"

"Loki turned him back into a boy," Steve explains. "For that matter, care to explain why he can still do magic?"

"…I must have words with my brother," Thor says, striding off down the hall. "Then I will speak to Vale."

"All the go," Bruce mutters, watching him go.

"Hey, while you two are here," Tony says, turning to him and Peter, "we found some bits downstairs that aren't from any of my machinery. Want to come have a look?"

"So I'm supposed to call back your cleaning crews for you?" Steve complains loudly to Tony's back.

"Thanks, dear," Tony calls as the mad scientists get into the lift.

"Great, now there's three of them…" Steve mutters. "Jarvis? Can you call the SHIELD cleanup crew back for me?"

{}

Loki strains at his power as he passes his hand over the wounds on his arm. Healing has never been a specialty of his, but it is ridiculous how much difficulty he is having with this simple injury. The punctures are still there, but shallower now.

Loki pulls his sleeve down, frustrated at how exhausted he now feels. He will not sleep, not here, not yet. He will not be so vulnerable again.

It burns at him, the look in the creature's eyes as he saw the scar on Loki's arm. There was pity there! _Pity_! That that filthy _beast_ should pity _Loki_ was intolerable. When Loki's full powers return to him, he swears, that beast will _burn_.

Thor has mentioned to him before that the beast had been spending time with Vale, too. Probably trying to connect with him, to _sympathize_ with him, as he tried with Loki. It always makes him laugh. As if that beast can _understand_ him, or _help_ him. It is even more laughable now. The scene that Loki walked into was all too reminiscent of the carnage before Angrboda's hall, so long ago.

It is all too clear now that Loki's own monstrosity taints all he touches. There was never any hope for Val; it is perhaps a blessing that Narfe died before he, too, could become a monster, like all of Loki's kin. Perhaps one day, Sleipnir will break from his stable and trample Thor's idiotic head into the dirt with every hoof. It might be too much to wish for.

After all, Loki has already seen Thor's death. And caused it.

Thor looks concerned as he steps into Loki's room. Loki sneers. No doubt he has spoken to the beast. Well, before long it will matter no longer.

{}

"Let me see your arm, Loki," Thor says. Loki crosses his arms, shielding the wounded one, not looking up at his brother.

"Your creature talks too much," he murmurs. "I ought to thread his lips."

"Loki," Thor says sternly, "_show me_."

Loki looks at him, an unpleasant smile curling his lips. "As you wish, your highness," he says mockingly, laying aside his coat and removing his shirt. Thor hasn't seen him change clothes all year; he knows that Loki often uses low-level magic to clean, repair and alter his clothes. It is for this reason that the wounds have gone unnoticed by all of them.

It isn't just the one on Loki's inner arm, the one Bruce noticed that does indeed extend halfway up his bicep. There's a criss-cross of scars across his upper chest, another on his stomach and other arm, some extending round his back. All of the wounds are mottled blue and black, either so damaging or so traumatic that Loki's Aesir glamour cannot cover them and his Jotun skin shows through.

"What is this?" Thor demands, horrorstruck. "Loki, where did you get these?"

"Souvenirs, memories, of the edge of space..." Loki says, humming as he picks up a book lying on the end of his unused bed and begins to read, half-ignoring Thor. "So very quiet, out among the stars... So full of lost creatures howling..."

"Who inflicted these, Loki?" Thor demands, his hand griping Mjolnir's handle. Loki looks at him, and then begins to laugh hysterically.

"And what?" He giggles. "It is far to travel just to die, Thor. There are many easier ways to see my daughter. You missed her yesterday, you know, she was very busy, her friend was bringing her such heavy loads. Puppet corpses, one and all, killing and dying like the Chitauri..."

Thor sat on the end of his bed, his head in his hands. "Brother, please let Doctor Banner look at those," he sighed, rubbing his forehead as he tries to make sense of his brother's babble.

"Keep that creature from my sight," Loki says sharply.

"Abuse him not, for he is a good man," Thor says, watching Loki's clothes reform over him, hiding the ugly wounds once more.

"He embraces the monster and yet wishes to call himself a man?" Loki says scornfully. "Foolish."

"We must see to your injuries, Loki," Thor says, watching red soak into Loki's sleeve again. "That bite is still bleeding."

Loki laughs again. "This is nothing!" He says. "Wounds are nothing, pain is sweet, and Death is little but a kindness. Why fear it, _dear brother_, when we know what awaits? For you, no doubt, Valhalla, and for me, the hope that my daughter is lenient to her old father. Why fear it?" He stands up suddenly, tossing the book aside and slapping Thor full across the face. Thor's head snaps to the side. "Why fear it, oh Mighty Thor?" Loki hisses. "Why not kill me now?"

"Because whatever your madness tells you, you are still my brother," Thor says firmly, looking back at Loki. "I wish only to help you."

Loki bursts out laughing again. "When have _you_ ever been able to help _me_?" He gasps, clutching his stomach as he shakes with laughter. Thor flinches. "How could you ever help me? I am a monster that fears nothing but that which I so richly deserve. If you wish to _help_ me, if you wish to be _kind_, then kill me now!"

"Do not ask that of me, brother," Thor says quietly, standing up. "I thought you dead once. I will not see it again."

"How very selfish of you," Loki says, returning to his seat.

"I will ask Doctor Banner to come back again to see to your arm and other wounds," Thor says. "Please, brother, let us help you."

Loki does not respond again, only laughing loudly, his laughter following Thor out of the room.

{}

Thor stops to compose himself before visiting Vale, but even so the boy flinches at the sight of him.

"I'm sorry, Uncle," he says, burying his head in his hands. Thor places a hand on his nephew's shoulder.

"Do not apologize, Vale," he says gently. "It is not your fault."

"But I did it on purpose!" Vale wails. "I turned into- into a _monster_ on purpose…"

"For reasons that were not evil," Thor says firmly. "Listen, Vale. Now we know that you may transform again, you must learn to control these transformations. It is a blessing that you are able to change back. Others have not been so lucky. Your mother's blood protects you, no doubt. Water is flowing and ever-changing, after all. Her mourning for Narfe will end soon, and then I think she intends to take you home."

Vale flinches again. "Back to Asgard?" he says tremulously. "I do not wish to go there, Uncle- please don't make me go back…!" He's starting to panic, his hands fisting until the knuckles go white. Thor grabs his hands, squeezing them gently.

"Be calm, Vale," he says soothingly. "Your mother wishes to live in the water meadows. She desires to live among Asgardians no more than you do. I am sure that she will be able to help you. Until then, Doctor Banner wishes to work with you."

"He is Shanta's father," Vale says. "Though not really. Their blood is not the same."

"No," Thor says firmly, "but that is irrelevant. Listen to me well, Vale. Family is not merely those whose blood you share. Family are those that you love and who love you in return. I think you know, Vale, that you and I share no blood, nor do your father and I, but nevertheless I consider him my brother and you my nephew, and I will have words with any who disagree!" He taps the handle of Mjolnir.

Vale nods. "Thank you… Uncle," he says, the last word a little hesitant but with feeling. "A Doctor is like a Healer, is it not? Will he fix me?"

"You're not broken, Vale," Thor says. "_Not yet_," he thinks sorrowfully, "_and the stars willing, not ever._"

"I turn into a monster," Vale argues.

"So does the Doctor," Thor says. "Have you been told about The Hulk?"

"Shanta said that her father used to transform into a green giant," Vale says. Thor shakes his head.

"He still does," he explains. "Ever since a scientific accident, the Doctor has been capable of transforming into a giant creature called the Hulk, incredibly powerful but with none of Bruce's intelligence. At first, the Hulk only came out when the Doctor lost control, and was a beast rampaging out of control, destroying all in its path." Thor smiles as understanding dawns on Vale's face. "It took him many years to learn control. Now, he and the Hulk are one. Last year, I fought by the side of the Hulk and did not fear it, for it was our ally in defending Midgard." He rubs his neck, opting to omit how the Hulk settled their battle from less than a day prior. "He wishes to help you find what you need to control the wolf, Vale. Learn control, and then it will be up to you whether to suppress the wolf, or to use it for good."

"Could it be used for good?" Vale asks, eyes wide.

"That choice is yours," Thor says, placing his hand to his nephew's neck affectionately. Vale smiles and closes his eyes briefly at the touch, like a puppy getting its ears scratched.

{}

"The power signature's pretty similar to the Ark Reactor," Peter says, pointing Doctor Banner to some readouts being taken from the glowing blue core of the device they recovered. Tony has taken holographic copies of the pieces and is reconstructing the device in the air in front of him. "That's why Jarvis didn't pick anything up. It was dwarfed by the reactor itself."

"Doesn't seem to be Starkium, though," Tony says, glancing at the readouts.

"Did you finally give up on the Badassium patent?" Bruce asks, not looking up from some radiation comparisons he was running.

"Yeah, so I settled for the name with more _me_ in it," Tony says thoughtfully. "Anyway, I'm thinking, y'know what this seems pretty similar in design and power to?"

"Exactly," Bruce says, nodding and throwing a power comparison into the air. The power readout of the device exactly matches an archived radiation comparison. "Diagnostics indicate that the core element is identical, and that pretentious physical design…"

"Similar or identical to what?" Peter asks. "Can we please get out of the doublespeak? It's cute that you guys have your own little language and all, but-"

"Loki's sceptre," Tony says, summoning up a holographic projection of a four-foot-long staff with a large jewel set in the top and a lethal-looking spike arcing over it. The detailing on the staff was not dissimilar to the engravings on the outside of the device. "Loki had this with him last year. Pretty serviceable physical weapon, and it also gave him some kinda freaky mind-control powers. Ask Barton about it sometime, if you're feeling ballsy. All we know about it's that Loki didn't get it from the Chitauri."

"Doesn't match the design and power of Chitauri tech at all," Bruce mutters, examining the teleport device. "Hmm. If we can find a power signature of that nature somewhere else on the planet at the corresponding times…"

"Did you ask Loki where it was from?" Peter asks. He gets a couple of those looks that suggest that he's asked an obvious and stupid question. Tony and Bruce are good at giving them to people with a creepy level of synchronicity.

"He claims it's of a 'higher power'," Bruce says dryly, "whatever the hell that means from a guy that might be a god…"

"Thor took it to some Asgardian craftsmen," Tony says, making the projection of the sceptre vanish. "Far as we know, they've still got it. They couldn't identify the design, suggesting it's not exactly from this corner of the Universe, but the jewel's made outta the same stuff as the Tessarect, which _maaaaaaaaay_ be the same as the element right here." He taps the glowing circle on his chest pointedly.

"The Tessa-thing is…?" Peter asks, getting a little fed up with not being able to keep up. After three months, the excitement at actually being asked to join a superhero team and intern for one of the top scientists in the world has ceded somewhat to the feeling that he's getting at least a little in over his head. He feels like he's missed a lot concerning Loki.

"It's a power source from Asgard," Bruce explains. "Or at least, it's being kept on Asgard. It was taken from some kind of alien warlord that Odin defeated a long time ago, from outside the Nine Realms, Thor says."

"What are the Nine Realms?" Peter asks. "Galaxies? The planets and Pluto?"

"Not too sure on that one," Tony says. "You'll have to ask Doctor Foster, but I'd be quick about it. I hear she's shipping out to an observatory in Alaska tomorrow."

"She is?" Peter asks. "Why?"

{}

"I understand, Jane," Thor says patiently. Jane runs her hand through her hair, feeling like he's taking this entirely too calmly.

"I've been neglecting my research all month," she says. "I don't feel like I'm any help here. I can't help Vale, and I…" she hangs her head. She shouldn't gloss things over, not for Thor. "I'm scared, Thor. When Loki got out… except for when we thought the Destroyer killed you, I've never been so scared in my life. I don't have powers like you, or Bruce, or Peter… everything that's going on here is just in over my head, and I… I don't feel like I can help you with any of it. I want to do more than just sit and hold your hand, Thor."

"Jane, it is fine," Thor says, standing up and wrapping his arms around her. "I know that you support what I hope to achieve with Vale, and it means everything to me. You are a genius, Jane, and should not be wasted. Your work is brilliant, and will advance your world among the stars. And I will confess myself that I will feel some relief that you are far from here. This place is dangerous, of a sudden. If that attack was the first wave, it will lighten my heart to know that you are far out of the way of the second."

"I just… feel like I'm running away and leaving you," Jane sighs, leaning into him.

"While I have felt as if I am neglecting you," Thor says. "I do not want you to feel as if you are not important to me, Jane, but since Narfe's death…"

"Vale is important, Thor," Jane says, breaking away and turning to face him. "I would never expect you to abandon a family member who needs you. You've got such a big heart, Thor. I get the feeling that the more people you love, the bigger it is. I don't think I'd love you so much if you abandoned people so easily." Even on her tiptoes, she can't quite reach her gigantic boyfriend's lips, but luckily he reads her well and leans down to kiss her.

"Thank you, Jane," he says, sinking down on the couch and rubbing his beard. "I must confess, my need to help Vale is not entirely selfless. I just… I cannot fail again, Jane," he says softly and with a depth of vulnerability not often shown. "I failed Loki too often. I cannot fail his son. I _cannot_."

"A lot of things combined to make Loki the way he is," Jane says, sitting down by his side and taking his hand. "He's not some helpless child. He made plenty of bad decisions on his own. You can't blame yourself entirely."

"But there were many junctures at which I could have helped him, yet only made things worse," Thor says mournfully. "I did it too often. He did trust me once, Jane. He once shared with me alone the secret closest to his heart, and when I tried to help him I only made things far worse, and it ended in disaster due to me. If he had never told me about Angrboda…"

"Who's Angrboda?" Jane asks.

"It is… a long tale," Thor says, looking around. "You need rest before your flight…"

"Oh, I'll sleep on the plane," Jane says dismissively. "Besides, as a scientist I only need an hour of sleep a day. C'mon, I'm done packing and I'm curious. Tell me the story. Who was Angrboda?" She settles down against his side on the sofa. Thor sighs, giving in, and wraps his arm around her.

_Next chapter will be another myth retelling. If you're a myth geek like me, you probably know generally what's coming. It's not gonna be a happy one. Some Thor/Jane stuff too, because I like them. I feel like their attraction is based on a lot of mutual respect as much as she's Natalie Portman and he's Chris Hemsworth and who DOESN'T want to snog them? :x But one of the first compliments that Thor pays Jane, in the movie is to tell her that she's "clever, far more clever than anyone else in this realm", and when talking to her about astronomy as it's known on Asgard he doesn't talk down to her as an ignorant Midgardian. Thor fascinates Jane professionally as much as personally, I think, because her work is everything to her. So I don't see them as a couple that lets their emotions run their relationship; they're both capable of treating things in a level-headed way without loving each other any less or doubting their love for each other any less. It's the kind of relationship I'd like to have. Dating a guy that looks like Chris Hemsworth or a girl that looks like Natalie Portman wouldn't hurt, either :x_


	17. Forever

_**Title**__: Forever_

_**Words: **__681_

_**Main Character(s)**__: Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers, Clint Barton, Tony Stark_

_**Notes:**__ Natasha always said that love is for children. But plans do change over time, and she's not the only one with almost too much of it. CapxWidow._

Against all expectations, including his, Clint Barton dies an old man. As Natasha Romanov stands over his grave, thinking of the quiet peace of his last months as he faded away, wrinkled and grey, she knows that that will never happen to her. She still looks just as she did the day she met him, seventy years before.

Clint outlived Bruce Banner, which had also shocked them all. Natasha can still remember a quiet conversation in the dark, illicitly overheard, Tony comforting Bruce as the latter tearfully confessed his fear of immortality, of his inability to sicken or be killed thanks to the Hulk. He was wrong about the former. In the end, gamma poisoning came to claim him. Twenty years after first becoming a monster of rage, Bruce Banner's heart slowed to a stop with his adopted daughter holding his hand. Tony shelled out obscene amounts of money for Shanta's university and medical school fees. Dr Shanta Banner has also been at Clint's funeral, one of the most compassionate women Natasha has ever known.

Tony Stark himself is an old man, too, and probably not long for this world. He lost a lot of heart after Pepper died a few years ago, and though the Arc Reactor has kept it beating, they all know that it will be the work of moments for Tony to remove it and succumb, despite the wishes of his children and grandchildren. But Tony Stark won't be a man to struggle away from Death. One day, perhaps not too long from now, he will summon Death to him and be waiting with a drink in his hand. Besides, what does he have to fear? At Bruce Banner's funeral, Jane Foster descended to tell them that all of the Avengers have long been promised seats in Valhalla. Tony has said that he's impatient to try that Aesirmead.

Thor himself did not come to Bruce's funeral, and has not come for Clint's. When the Odinsleep claimed his father completely, not to wake again until Ragnarok, Thor returned to Asgard to rule and has not descended to Earth since. One of Odin's last acts was to grant Jane Foster access to the Apples of Idun, allowing her to reside in Asgard with Thor, and though she has returned to Earth a few times, the visits have been few and far between. The Queen of Asgard is as busy and heavy with responsibility as its King, and she has not been seen on Earth since the death of Erik Selvig.

As Tony is wheeled away by one of his grandsons, the only one left standing by the grave with Natasha is Steve Rogers. He, like her, has not aged since long before he joined The Avengers; neither of them may ever age again. They are unchanged, even as those they love fade away around them. Even as things change vastly. Gone are the days when six people stand against an army; the Avengers are an army themselves, which Steve leads and Natasha trains, the most senior and respected members. They have fought alongside heroes the same age as the children of their dearest friends; the current Iron hero is Tony's Stark's granddaughter. Unless they are killed in battle, they will be Avengers for eternity.

She slips her hand into his. Love is for children, and she is more than a hundred years old. She feels so much older, even as she looks like a mere child besides grey old men and women. But she has resisted for decades, and it only grows harder over time.

"I thought you were never going to fall in love," Steve says quietly to her. He is hesitant, having politely respected her wishes and kept his distance ever since she first shot him down a good fifty years before, but she can still hear that warmth in his voice that he reserves for her. That is unchanged, and is one of the only things that is so.

"I'm only just realizing how long forever is," she responds. "It's a long time to be alone."

_I don't really ship these two, but I can see it happening, so yeah. Does Natasha ever do fluff ever, though? :x_


	18. Not A Soldier

_**Title:**__ Not A Soldier_

_**Words**__:679_

_**Main Character(s):**__ Tony Stark, James Rhodes_

_**Notes:**__ Four months in captivity can break anybody down. Rhodey's the only one to see just how badly. Some notes concerning _Vale_ updates at the bottom._

James Rhodes feels like he could walk on air. Tony's safe, he's alive, his best friend is hurt but he's alive and just fine...

Or so he thinks until he's taking a bundle of clean clothes down to the bathroom that Tony's cleaning up in. First thing that's odd is that the shower's running, though Rhodey's sure that there's a tub in there and that someone filled it for him.

Second, he can hear sharp, harsh breathing. It's almost like crying. Exactly like crying.

"Shit," he whispers, before knocking gently on the door. "It's me," he says quietly, waiting to be invited in instead of letting himself in, giving Tony his time, his space, a chance to recover his dignity if he wants.

"'Mon in, Rhodey," Tony says heavily. Rhodey lets himself in, closing the door behind him, and beholds a Tony Stark more naked than any gaggle of playboy bunnies have ever seen. It's not just that he's physically unclothed, sitting on the tub floor- hell, half of YouTube's seen Tony Stark without any clothes- but that Tony Stark is the last person on the planet that Rhodey ever expected to see in the foetal position. He's sitting upright, but he's still curled tight with his head pressed into his knees.

"Thought someone filled the bath for you," Rhodey said after a few moments of silence, setting down the clothes. "Uses less water if you're gonna be in there a while."

"Yeah, I know water's kind of a thing here..." Tony sighed, running a hand through his sodden and shaggy-long hair, "but I just don't feel like ever seeing a tub of water ever again, okay?" He looks up and water streams down his face, not really managing to conceal his red, swollen eyes. Rhodey hisses involuntarily in anger.

"Shit, man," he mutters. "Sorry, I didn't realize they'd..."

"Yeah, up until I realized that they had my weapons and were willing to leave me alone with a bunch of them if they thought I was working for them, I wasn't feeling co-operative," Tony says, running his hand through his hair again, repeatedly, flicking water out as the shower continues to run over him. "They had my _weapons_, Rhodey... they used _my_ weapons to kill those soldiers... Shit, some of them were just _kids_..." his voice breaks and he rubs his hand over his mouth, as if trying to wipe away an involuntary sob.

"They were soldiers, Tony," Rhodey says, trying to lessen the guilt that he can see pressing heavily onto his friend's shoulders. "They knew the risks when they took the job. We're soldiers..."

"I'm not," Tony says harshly. "I'm not, and I-I didn't realize..."

"I know you're not, buddy," Rhodey says gently. "That's why we're gonna get you cleaned up, send you home for Pepper and Jarvis to take care of..." he pats the stack of clean clothes. "'Fraid we ain't got your Calvin Klein boxers, but these oughta be in your size."

Tony laughed, a little harsher than his usual carefree self, but it's good to hear the sound nevertheless. "Calvin Klein? Please. Where's my Armani?" He uncurls, reaching up to turn off the shower. Rhodey can't stop staring at the glowing circle on his chest.

"I know they're all "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" these days, but if you don't stop staring at me towelling off someone's gonna ask," Tony points out. Rhodey throws the bundle of clothes at his head.

"That just looks painful, man," he said, waving at the glowing _thing_ in Tony's chest. Tony taps it, grinning as Rhodey winces at the metallic _clink_.

"Less painful than miniscule shards of shrapnel digging into my squishy vitals," he quipped, pulling on the boxers and pants. "Uh... don't have a belt, do you?"

Rhodey goes to find him one, trying to put out of his mind how the clothes that were his size four months ago hang off him, and how, despite the return to the snark and lighthearted quips, the weight he could see pressing down on Tony Stark hadn't lifted at all.

_Frankly, I'm amazed that Tony's PTSD isn't worse than it is. Then again, I suppose building a super-suit and trying to fly to the moon isn't what most sane people would do first thing when they got home…_

_Also, even thought the writing for the _Vale_ series is flying, I'm feeling guilty about not updating my Pokémon fic in ages, so I'm setting myself the personal target of not posting _Vale_ chapters until I've posted another _After Armageddon_ chapter. So, uh… depending on how long it takes to surgically reanimate my Pokémon plunnies, it might be a little while before there's another _Vale_ update :x_


	19. Reunion

_**Title**__: Reunion_

_**Words: **__933_

_**Main Character(s):**__ Betty Ross, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner_

_**Notes:**_ _Betty's a little suspicious about her new job, but the benefits are better than she expects._

Almost as soon as Betty Samson steps into the lobby of Stark Tower, she spots several familiar faces. Not ones that she knows personally, but ones that she has seen in articles and journals many times over. How could she not know them? She is approaching a group of the world's foremost biochemical and medical professionals.

She introduces herself and makes the rounds of hand-shaking, receiving a few confused looks as to why a no-name like herself is there. At least there is no suspicion; the rumours about the incident at Culver had followed her for a while and she was worried that they would rear up again following her finally quitting last year. Luckily, the excuse that she was getting married had satisfied everyone. Not that she'd married Leo just to get away from her job. She loves him dearly, and he's been the most patient, understanding man in the world with her hectic life and confused feelings for Bruce Banner. The last year of domestic serenity has been wonderful. But with their new daughter, they are needing a little more money around the house than Leo's University work provides, and Tony Stark is offering an astoundingly generous salary and benefits package for a relatively low number of hours. The job offer is also extremely low on detail, vaguely mentioning that the project is medical in nature and nothing more.

Betty's starting to wonder if something's been hidden from her, because it turns out that all of the others have already had one-to-one interviews with Tony Stark. Betty's increasingly worried that she's wandered in on the wrong day when Tony Stark strolls out of an elevator and starts shaking hands.

"Afternoon, nice to meet you, howdy," Stark says as he shakes hands, nodding as he apparently recognizes everyone. "Glad you could make it, Professor Samson," he says to her personally, confirming that she is supposed to be there but only confusing her more as she is the only one that he greets by name. "I think your expertise is gonna be particularly helpful here. Anyways, everyone follow me to the labs, I'll show you where you'll be working..."

"Will you tell us exactly what this project is now, Monsieur Stark?" asks Dr Nican, a talented French biochemist. She has been giving Betty the stink-eye ever since Stark greeted her by name and apparently placed her in a position of some importance over the others, and it's starting to irritate Betty.

"All in good time," Stark promises. "Actually, I think I'll let the team leader explain it, he knows what's going on better than I do, physics and engineering are more my thing... hey, don't worry, smile!" he says brightly, clapping the Frenchwoman on the shoulder. "Loosen up. He hates tension in the workplace." He leads them into a large elevator. "Medical labs, please, Jarvis. In simple terms, I'd like to enlist all of you to help us find the cure."

"The cure for _what_, exactly?" asks Doctor Manson, a medical professional. "Is this a cancer project?"

"Cancer, AIDS, tuberculosis, leprosy, the common cold... _everything_, Doc," Stark says. "A pal of mine happens to be immune to all forms of infection, illness and disease. Two pals, actually, for different reasons. A large part of the project's gonna be decoding and cross-referencing their unique genetic structures to find out why, and reverse-engineering it into the cure for all human illness. Does that sound like fun or what?" The elevator stops and opens, letting them out into an open-plan laboratory filled with the most lavish selection of high-end equipment that Betty has ever seen. It's breathtaking, and gives Betty a childish urge to run around and look at everything. A few of the others are gaping a little. Dr Nican recovers enough to start questioning Stark again.

"Who is this team leader to be?" Nican asked. "You have not mentioned him before. I can think of few eminent scientists in our field who are not here already."

"Don't worry about it, he's a genius, and this is _me_ talking," Stark says, looking around. "Just so you know, while Jarvis runs the building, these labs are run by a sub-AI of a more clinical bent. The team leader didn't find Jarvis' sarcasm particularly useful for a medical project, for some reason. Hey, Yinsen, where is the big guy?"

"The ultracentrifuge, sir," a synthesized voice says smoothly. Stark nods and strolls off between the machines and stops by a desk where the large grey machine is rumbling away. A large man in a dark shirt and trousers is bent over the machine, watching some readouts. Betty's view of him is obscured by the angle he is standing at and the other researchers, and she can't see him clearly, but her heart skips a beat when he speaks.

"When you said this place was Candyland, you weren't kidding," the man says dryly as Stark claps him on the shoulder, not otherwise looking up or reacting. "I know the job offer came with an apartment upstairs, but I think I'd be happy with a bed between the picoteter plates and the operant chambers..."

"You've spent too much time in the third world," Stark says. "Let me spoil you. Anyways, I found the labcoats you recommended. I know he's been off the radar awhile, but perhaps some of you have heard of Doctor Bruce Banner?"

He's taller than she remembers, more filled-out, as if he's closer to a transformation, but it's him, it's Bruce, and though it's deeply unprofessional Betty can't stop herself from throwing her arms around his neck.

_At first I figured that Betty would keep her maiden name for professional reasons, but then I realized that I was writing her as trying to get away from the stigma of her previous work and when I think about it she'd probably want to dump her dad's name as soon as possible anyway._

_Also, in the MCU I don't ship Bruce/Betty, probably because Liv Tyler's performance and complete lack of chemistry with anyone at all has scarred me :x But I really liked Doctor Samson and I think he'd be really good for Betty, as well as a good friend for Bruce, so I pretty much ship that, yeah. I kinda envision that Bruce and Betty return to being good friends, but with her happily married and him purposefully staying out of romantic relationships, never anything more._


	20. Vale 5: Angrboda

_**Title**__: Vale 5: Angrboda_

_**Words**__:_

_**Main Character(s)**__: Thor Odinsson, Jane Foster, Loki Odinsson, Angrboda, Hela Lokidottir, The Lady Sif, Fenrir Lokisson, Jorgamund Lokisson_

_**Notes**__: Loki's first logn-term relationship ended very badly indeed. Thor blames himself, and Loki does too. Lots of mythological flashbacking and more Thor x Jane. I also wanted to tell a story that showed that, while Thor and Loki were once as close as Thor thought they still were at the time of the movie, there was also a point where Loki lost a lot of faith in his big brother and trust in his father._

"_Brother!" Thor said jovially, vaulting over the balcony he was sitting on and startling Loki as he tried to sneak back into the halls of Odin. "Snuck out again, did you?"_

"_I can't imagine what you mean," Loki asked calmly. Thor grinned and clapped him on the shoulder._

"_Come, brother, do not waste your talent for deception," he said mockingly. "I noticed you sneaking out some time ago. Where do you slip to?" He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Is it a woman?"_

"_Perhaps," Loki said idly. Thor slapped him on the back._

"_That is wonderful!" He exclaimed. "You ought not to sneak to see a woman, brother! Is she beautiful? She must be, to enchant you so! You must let us meet her!"_

"_That will not be possible," Loki muttered._

"_But why not?" Thor asked in confusion. Loki glanced around nervously and leaned closer to Thor._

"_Brother, I will tell you who she is," he said quietly, "but I beg of you, it must be kept a secret!"_

"_You have my word," Thor promised, bemused. "But why?"_

"_Her name is Angrboda," Loki said reluctantly. "And she... she is a giantess."_

"_...That is not funny, Loki," Thor admonished him. "Tell me truly; who is she?"_

"_I do not jest, Thor!" Loki hissed. "I swear, she is not a brute like so many of her kin. She's different... a sorceress of some talent, though she will never be recognized as such because of her kind... she's fascinating." He looked away as he blushed somewhat._

"_You are serious," Thor said quietly, staring intently at his brother. "You know it is forbidden?"_

"_Why do you think I have been sneaking?" Loki snapped. "There will be no trouble. She keeps a hall in the Iron Wood, the better to practice her witchcraft. I beg of you, Thor, tell no-one!"_

"_Do you love her, Loki?" Thor asked solemnly. Loki only nodded, looking down. "Then you have my word. I swear upon my soul that I shall speak of this nobody, not even Sif. Be careful, brother."_

"_You ought to be careful too, brother," Loki said lightly, looking relieved, "if you intend to keep secrets from your wife..."_

{}

"Wife?" Jane asks, startled. "You're _married_?" She jerks away from her warm position, leaning against his side on the couch, uncomfortably remembering mythological ideals of fidelity and the lack thereof.

"I was," Thor says, looking amused but thankfully understanding of her sudden panic. "We drifted apart after a few centuries and separated. Sif is still a dear friend to me, but we do not- and, I suspect, cannot- love each other as we once did. It happens, sometimes, and it is accepted on Asgard that not all unions last millennia like that of my parents." He looks saddened. "My brother's fears about how his relationship with Angrboda would be viewed were probably only heightened by knowing that his relationship would be contrasted with mine in the eyes of the Asgardians."

"I think I know the feeling," Jane says, hanging back a little hesitantly from him. A year is nowhere near enough to learn about a millennium of life, but it's another one of those moments where Jane feels like she's barely scratched the surface of Thor's life and may never make a dent in it. She sighs wrapping her arms around him and drawing him close, wishing she could do something to alleviate the sadness that always overtook him where his brother was concerned these days. To make _some_ impact. "My cousin got married straight out of high school to a nice guy in med school. He's a doctor now, and they've got a couple of kids, and my aunt is _always_ making comments about me "playing around with lab equipment like a boy instead of finding a nice guy at her age"... I'm only twenty-six, for pity's sake, not some crazy old spinster!" She kissed him on the cheek. "Besides, I certainly found an interesting guy while chasing those stars..."

"Your aunt ought to be ashamed of herself for not appreciating your intellect," Thor says, wrapping an arm around her waist. "Your research is far beyond anyone else in this realm! I have no doubt that you will revolutionize the capabilities of Midgard! Besides," he adds with a grin, "by Asgardian standards, twenty-six is barely a toddler. Sif and I were not married until we were over a hundred and thirty."

Jane is a little uncomfortable now about mentions of Sif, seeing the lady warrior in a very different light now knowing that she's the celestial ex, as it were. "Loki couldn't get married to Angrboda, could he?"

"Actually, he was," Thor explains. "By Asgardian terms, a couple- or trio, it is not unheard of- who love each other and share bedchambers are considered married." Jane goes very red as she realizes the implications for their own relationship. "I understand that that is not the Midgardian definition. When the time is right, if you are agreeable to it, I should like to honour our relationship in the tradition of your people."

"...was that a proposal?" Jane asks. "If so, it was the weirdest one I've ever heard." She shakes her head. "Maybe it's something we should talk about later. When I'm back from my research trip and things with Vale have settled down... tell me more about Loki and Angrboda."

"If you wish," Thor says, inwardly breathing a sigh of relief that she didn't outright shoot him down. That was not as hard as Tony has led him to believe. "Loki was still studying magic at the time, and often took trips to look for enchanted locations or sorcerers of various skills. Many of these trips were simply cover to spend weeks or months with Angrboda, living together, sleeping together, and raising their children."

"Children?" Jane asks.

{}

_Thor found Loki sitting alone, staring into a fire. He was wearing his dark green travelling clothes, which Thor now suspected meant that he had in fact been slipping into the woods to visit Angrboda. He had heard that Loki had returned and had sought to welcome him back, but his brother's face when he thought himself alone gave Thor pause. Loki was pale, his eyes were somewhat swollen, and he looked deeply worried._

"_What troubles you, Brother?" Thor asked, sitting across the fire from him. Loki looked past Thor nervously, checking that his brother was alone, immediately telegraphing to Thor that this latest trip had indeed been time spent with Angrboda. "It is only me, Loki. What is wrong?"_

"_The healing magic I have studied is not enough," Loki muttered, rubbing a hand over his forehead tiredly. "I need someone with a Gift for healing, Brother. Someone who will be discreet."_

"_Discreet?" Thor leaned forward. "Is she alright?"_

"_Not the she you are thinking of," Loki said. "We... we have a daughter. Her name is Hela."_

"_What?" Thor cried, leaping to his feet and rounding the fire to sit by Loki. Loki looked around, frightened._

"_Brother, keep your voice down, please!" He hissed._

"_I am sorry," Thor apologized. "It is simply a sudden- but pleasant!- surprise to learn that I have a niece." He smiled and clapped his brother on the shoulder. "Mother will not be happy that you have kept her granddaughter from her!"_

"_She's sick, Thor," Loki interrupted quietly. "She has been since the day she was born, and I... I am at my wit's end for what to do. She is in constant pain, and I cannot help her."_

_All of Thor's joviality faded instantly. "And that is why you need a Healer," he said solemnly. "I see."_

"_I fear that any Healer of Asgard will not see a giantess' child," Loki muttered. "Or that they will not keep it a secret..." he flexed his fingers nervously. "Perhaps if I can convince one to see her, and then... there are other spells I have learned, to erase or alter memory..."_

"_Fret not, Brother," Thor cut him off. "There is no need to misuse your magic so. I will speak to Groa. A more gifted Healer I have never known, and I am sure that I can prevail upon her to be discreet."_

"_The lady Sif may not be amenable of you paying a visit to your old lover," Loki said wryly._

"_I will go now, and we will try to resolve this swiftly," Thor said firmly. "And I will come with you to see Hela. If I may meet with Angrboda, I might be able to vouch for her to Father, and your family may be allowed to live within Asgard. You will have to sneak out to see them no longer!"_

"_It is forbidden," Loki whispered. _

"_Our Father is King," Thor said firmly. "It is for him to decide that which is and is not forbidden. Come, we shall go now to Groa. My niece will not suffer a minute longer!"_

{}

"I confess, I was excited at the prospect of having my niece around because Sif and I had no children of our own," Thor sighs.

"Why not?" Jane asks. "Didn't you want any?" She grins. "Two hundred considered too young for that?"

"It was not that," Thor says. "We thought sometimes that we would like children someday, but it is an old law that the heir to the throne may not have heirs of his own until he is King. Or lives are long on Asgard, and in the past, when the generations piled up, there was fighting, father against son. It is sensible enough. I do look forward to the honour of fatherhood, someday, when I am King. I wonder if I would be a worthwhile father, though. I cannot even help Vale..."

"Vale needs time, Thor, and his situation is pretty unusual," Jane says, filing that information away under "things to discuss at length when there's time". She's never been a hugely "family" type, aside from being a bit of a daddy's girl, so the thought that she and Thor may not have a family together hits her less than the recurring thought that Thor will go on for thousands of years after her death and that, by Asgardian standards, theirs will be a brief, whirlwind relationship. "So what happened? What was wrong with Hela?"

Thor sighs heavily. "I am afraid that "ill" was a terrible understatement for Hela's condition."

{}

_Groa looked unhappy about being outwith the walls of Asgard, but as Thor had hoped her good heart had been moved by the thought of a child suffering._

_Angrboda's hall was in fact built into the trunk of a gigantic, ancient tree. Thor could only imagine how much life energy was flowing through such a giant thing. No doubt it amplified the sorceress' powers, and Loki's._

_Loki knocked twice on the large door. "Boda," he called. "It is I, Loki. I have brought a Healer to see Hela."_

_The door creaked open. Angrboda was very tall, as would be expected of a giantess, swathed in sleek fur robes, but her face was unusually beautiful for her kind. She had thick, dark blonde hair tied into a heavy knot at the back of her neck and large, dark brown eyes. _

"_It is an honour to meet you, Lady Angrboda," Thor said politely. "So this is the woman who has so enchanted my brother! I am Thor and this is the Lady Groa, the finest Healer in all of Asgard."_

_Angrboda extended her hand to Thor. He kissed it, and stepped back to allow her to shake Groa's hand._

"_I cannot trust Asgardians," she said. Her voice was quite deep. "I shall accompany you to see my daughter."_

"_Of course," Thor agreed. "We will all go."_

"_This way," Loki said, leading them across the cavernous hall and towards a twisting spiral staircase that went up into the tree. Groa stayed close to Thor's side, holding his arm._

"_I do not like this," she muttered to Thor. "I feel watched."_

_Thor nodded. He thought he had seen something watching them from behind a door more than once as they ascended through level after level, but he did not want to dwell too long about what might be running around the home of two sorcerers. "I swear to you that no harm will befall you here," he promised. _

_Hela was lying curled under a thick fur wrap on a bed in a small room. She looked much like her father, with sharp features and long black hair, but when her eyes opened, they could see through the haze of pain that they were nearly black like her mother's. _

"_Father," she whispered, reaching out to Loki. He took her hand in both of his, kneeling down next to the head of her bed._

"_I have found a Healer who may be able to help you," he said softly. "Just lie still." Hela's eyes drifted closed again as Loki massaged her hand, perhaps trying to enchant some of her pain away._

"_I must examine her," Groa said, kneeling next to Loki. Thor kept one eye on Angrboda, who was watching Groa's every move with deep suspicion. "May I remove her wrap?"_

_Loki blanched, but nodded. Angrboda's eyes narrowed. Thor's gaze drifted to Hela, wondering what could be putting the girl in such great pain._

_Loki snapped his fingers and a few balls of fire appeared, wrapping themselves gently around Hela without harming her. She was shivering violently, but perhaps it was pain rather than cold; the fire did only a little to soothe her._

_Groa gently lifted aside the furs. Hela was wearing a long green dress that extended past her feet, curled on her side as she was. Groa frowned. The shape of her legs was odd. She lifted aside the bottom of Hela's skirt, and then dropped it with a shriek._

_Hela's feet and legs were those of a skeleton; not merely thin and emaciated, but literally nothing but bones._

"_She has been like this since she was born," Loki muttered. "Can you help her?"_

"_This child is half-death," Groa said shakily. "There is only one help that can be afforded to her." He suddenly drew a knife from her belt, raising it over her head._

"_No!" Angrboda yelled, grabbing Groa's arm. With a _crunch_, she broke it. Groa screamed and dropped her knife._

"_Let her go!" Thor shouted, charging Angrboda and throwing her away from Groa. The Healer staggered back, clutching her broken arm. Thor placed himself between her and Angrboda, who was snarling angrily, the feral brutality that her kind was known for writ across her beautiful face. Her eyes had turned vivid red, the glamour that she had woven to hide their true colour burning away in her rage._

"_She will continue to rot and only be in more pain until she is killed!" Groa screamed. "She is an abomination!"_

"_Hold your tongue!" Loki yelled angrily. Angrboda roared in rage and charged._

"_Calm yourself!" Thor demanded, matching her wild swing with a more powerful one of his own, knocking her back._

"_Angrboda!" Loki called, running to her. He looked up at Thor in anguish."Groa!" He said sharply. Thor turned. The Healer had fled._

_Thor took off after her, Loki and Angrboda's shouting ringing the halls behind him and still feeling watched._

{}

"I failed to catch Groa before she returned to Asgard," Thor remembers. "It was chaos. Groa is a respected Seer and her husband a mighty warrior. He rallied many others to believe that Hela was an abomination, fit only to be killed, and many agreed after hearing about the terrible state of her body. It was not difficult, either, to convince them that Angrboda was a savage monster."

"But... she was defending her child," Jane points out. "Breaking someone's arm is pretty nasty, but if someone tried to kill Shanta, could any of us blame Bruce for Hulking out on them?"

"I agree," Thor says, "But Angrboda was a giantess- not just any giantess, but as we realized from her red eyes, a _Jotun_. I'm afraid that prejudice against her kind remains to this day rife in Asgard."

"She... _was_ a giantess?" Jane asks.

"As I said before," Thor says grimly, "it ended badly."

_In the myths, Angrboda is mentioned only briefly as both a Jotun and a witch living in the Iron Woods, and both times only in the context of being the mother of Fenrir, Jorgamund and Hela by Loki. In the context of the MCU, I have no doubt that Angrboda's race would be a huge deal, and that the whole affair would be a lot more damaging personally to Loki than was ever mentioned in the mythology :/ _

_While it's very common for Hela to be depicted as a sort of female Two-Face, half of her face a beautiful woman's with the other half a skull, the rot extending symmetrically down her body, the myths tend to describe her as being a woman down to the waist and a skeleton below that, so I went with that. Don't ask me how her feet and leg bones are holding together; both of her parents are sorcerers. Literally, a wizard did it, maybe :x Also, I figure her condition is less due to being a halfbreed (which, in-universe, is what Asgardians at the time would have attributed it to) but just more due to the fact that she was the occasional unlucky child chosen by the Norns… _

_This ended up going much longer than I thought, so the second half is the rest of my retelling of the myth. Hope you're finding it interesting!_


	21. Soviet Asgard

_**Title: **__Soviet Asgard_

_**Words:**__ 867_

_**Main Character(s): **__Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Thor Odinsson, Loki Odinsson_

_**Notes:**__ Based off of headcanon #747 from TheAvengersHeadcanons: Natasha knows every Soviet Russia joke. She makes her teammates howl with laughter when she says "horse ride you" or "food cook you" in a genuine Russian accent and a straight face. (Submitted by gabumon-noodles)_

"I don't get what that has to do with Soviet Russia," Steve is saying when Natasha walks into Tony's living room. Bruce, Tony and Steve are all sitting around the same computer screen, with Tony clearly in the process of explaining something.

"Well, the thing about Soviet Russia was that people were watched, all the time," Tony explains. "'Least, that was the story. You were being watched all the time, whatever you did. So instead of you watching television…"

"In Soviet Russia, television watches you?" Natasha says, half for the chance to revert to her "normal" accent (part of her wants to keep thinking of it as her real accent, even though she speaks in it so rarely) and half for the shocked expression on Tony's face. "Yes, Stark, I have been on the internet."

"So the joke grew that things went backwards in Soviet Russia," Bruce explains calmly, slightly imitating Natasha's accent when he says "Soviet Russia". It's always hard to tell when he's taking the piss or not. "Television watches you. Dinner eats you. Car drives you. So on and so forth."

"This internet of yours is a strange thing," Thor says. He's apparently taking part in the internet lesson as well, since he's on another screen staring down Non-Stop Nyancat. "What is this strange creature grown from a pop-tart, and why does it appear to be excreting rainbows? I have never seen such a strange thing upon the Bifrost."

"It's what happens to pop-tarts when they get to a thousand years old," Tony says, rolling his chair along to Thor's screen. "The Soviet Russia joke would be that in Soviet Russia, pop-tarts eat you!"

"That does not sound funny at all," Thor says with a frown. "It sounds quite disastrous."

"It's funny because it's absurd," Bruce explains gently. "Some things are funny because they're impossible."

Thor nods, though he doesn't seem to entirely understand. Natasha suspects that the Asgardian definition of "absurd" is rather different from the innocent Earth definition.

"So, for example… in Soviet Russia, picture draws you?" Steve says. Tony high-fives him.

"Exactly!" he says, clapping his hands together. "They grow up so fast…"

"There are thousands of them," Natasha says, rolling her eyes and slipping back into her accent again. "Umbrella opens you, car drives you, horse rides you…"

Thor suddenly bursts out into riotous laughter. "In Asgard too!" he chokes out, doubling up laughing. Everyone stares at him.

"I guess he just got it?" Tony says, a little nonplussed by Thor's hilarity. Thor suddenly gets up and leaves the room, still laughing.

"I think it was the horse one," Steve says. "Well, I don't know if they have cars or televisions in Asgard…"

"Or umbrellas," Bruce adds. "Anyway, I've found this site in particular to be really useful for catching up on the internet…"

After a few minutes, they're distracted from Knowyourmeme when Thor comes back, dragging a disgruntled Loki by the arm. The Trickster is holding a book in one hand with his thumb marking a place, evidently not appreciating having his quiet time interrupted. He hasn't tried to kill any of them in a long while, but drawing his ire is still not a popular pastime, since his sense of humour is even more inappropriate than Tony's and he has magical powers to back it up.

"…so things are reversed," Thor explains. "Lady Natasha, you must repeat the last one that you told me!"

Loki jerks his arm out of his brother's grasp and rolls his eyes, silently consenting to wait patiently for Natasha to lay some pitiful mortal "wit" on him.

Natasha glances at the others. Steve shrugs. "Do it for science!" Tony says. Bruce facepalms, then peers out at Loki to see what his reaction will be.

"In Soviet Russia, horse ride you?" Natasha says, looking quizzically at the Asgardians. Loki's eyebrows shoot up.

"Ideal place for you, brother!" Thor hoots, slapping Loki on the back and bursting out laughing again. Loki's expression darkens suddenly and he literally throws the book at his brother. By the time it reaches Thor, though, it is not a book but a giant tarantula that immediately latches onto Thor's face. By the time Thor has wrenched off the huge arachnid and smashed it under Mjolnir, Loki has stormed off.

"Ah," Thor gasps, looking a little shellshocked as he picks spider legs out of his hair. "Still somewhat sensitive about that affair, I see."

"Are you going to explain that to us now?" Steve asks. Thor shakes his head.

"Better not to," he says, staring sorrowfully on the smashed gunk stuck on Mjolnir and walking off to clean it. Natasha wrinkles her nose at the disgusting mush left on the carpet.

"He's gonna _have_ to explain that one," Tony says, "Because I'm coming up with some pretty twisted mental images here."

"They're from Asgard, anything could have happened," Bruce says, turning back to Steve's computer screen. "Now, that other picture you asked about, the dog with the rainbow background…"

Natasha leaves again, deciding to hole up in her flat and catch up on her television until Clint gets back from his latest assignment so she has someone sane to talk to.

_In other news, all future Vale chapters are being posted in the separate story posting. The first chapter was supposed to just be a longshot, but it's grown into quite a long thing in my brain :P_


	22. I'll Be Back

_**Title:**__ I'll Be Back_

_**Words: **__2358_

_**Main Character(s):**__ Bruce Banner, Shanta Banner, Tony Stark_

_**Notes:**__ See the first oneshot, _Flowers_, for details on who Shanta is. Shanta starts school, but she's not used to being without her daddy. Bruce isn't used to having someone with him all the time, and doesn't realize how much he'll miss it._

Six months after Shanta comes to live in Stark Tower, Natasha asks Bruce if he's going to start her at school in the fall term.

"Why, don't think she's getting a thorough enough education here?" asks Tony, who's fiddling with a car engine. "Whaddya think's missing?"

"Carburetor," Shanta says, enunciating carefully and pointing at the piece in question. Tony congratulates her and trades her his bag of raspberries for it.

"Not just for her education," Natasha says, "thought she's a very clever girl and could do well with one. She needs to meet other kids, too, not just middle-aged superheroes. It can be very lonely for a little girl not to have friends her own age."

"I hadn't thought about it," Bruce confesses. "But her English is coming along brilliantly, and she's used to New York now… Shanta what do you think about going to school?"

"School?" Shanta asks, brow furrowed. "What is school?"

They explain school to Shanta and she is most excited, as Natasha predicted, about getting to meet other children. Jarvis recommends a prestigious international boarding school which is nearby enough that Shanta can attend as a day student. It boasts students from over 70 countries, which will prevent Shanta and her still somewhat shaky grasp of English from standing out too much. Bruce worries that they're too close to the beginning of term to enrol Shanta, but Tony points out that, as a private school, money talks, and a little donation on top of the enrolment fee gets Shanta in no problem.

Bruce thinks that he's spent far too much time around Tony when he writes out the cheque without being too bothered by the vast sum. On top of that, there's a flurry of shopping for school and sports supplies, getting a uniform fitted and looking over the curriculum and timetable. Very quickly, it's time for Shanta's first day of school.

Shanta is bouncing with excitement on the drive there. Bruce has insisted on driving her himself, instead of letting her be chauffeured, but now he's so nervous that he can barely concentrate on Jarvis' satnav directions. Since he adopted her, this will be the first day that he and Shanta spend apart. He's terribly worried about sending her off on her own, about not being able to watch over her. He supposes that most of the parents sending their children to school today feel this way- or at least, the childrens' nannies probably do. Then again, none of them are capable of literally bursting through the classroom wall if they get too nervous.

Before long, they're out of the main city and part of a trail of expensive cars and posh taxis taking the children to school. The first day is orientation and settling in rather than lessons. Only a small handful of children commute.

Bruce feels a little out of place among all of the expensive cars. He's spent too long hitchhiking along back roads and he has to remind himself that he's driving one of Tony's Aston Martins rather than a rusty pickup.

"Here we are," Bruce says, finding a parking space. The spaces are very large, possibly because a dented door could cost thousands. "Have you got your bag?"

"Yes! I have bag!" Shanta says, bouncing to her feet and pulling her laptop bag over her shoulder. She has a top-of-the-line StarkTech notebook that weighs almost nothing, along with the pencils and math tools that Bruce remembers as school supplies.

Bruce gets out and takes her hand to lead her to the school gates, where children with luggage-carrying chauffers are being checked in by teachers. They are greeted by a middle-aged lady in a sharp suit and horn-rimmed glasses.

"It's a pleasure to have your daughter attending our school, Dr Banner," she says, shaking his hand and smiling brightly. "I hope she will find her time here rewarding. My name is Mrs Teazle, and I am the head of the History department. Shanta, if you would like to follow Miss Robinson over there, you can wait with the other commuting students for the resident students to get settled in."

Shanta looks confused. Mrs Teazle has a British public school accent and talks quite quickly, and it doesn't look like Shanta has entirely kept up. Bruce crouches down and squeezes her shoulder.

"Follow the girl over there," he says, pointing to an older girl who is directing a couple of children through an archway. "She will tell you where to go. Be good, and I will see you at four o'clock, okay?" He gives her a hug, standing up and letting go of her hand. "Go on."

She takes a few steps and looks back, suddenly looking scared. "Where is daddy going?" she asks.

"I'll go home until you're done in school," Bruce says. Shanta runs back and hugs his legs.

"Don't go, don't go!" she begs. Some of the other children are staring as Shanta starts to panic.

"Really, dear," Mrs Teazle says, looking shocked. "There's no need to make a scene!"

"It's alright," Bruce says mildly, though he's irritated at the woman. "She's not used to being away from me. Shanta? Would it make you feel better if I waited for you out here? If you look out at the car park, you'll see me waiting right here. Okay?"

"I suppose that's alright," Mrs Teazle says. "I'll take her in myself. Come along, Shanta, dear." She holds out her hand. Bruce nods and Shanta nervously takes it, allowing herself to be towed across the grounds, though she throws nervous glances back at Bruce every few steps.

Once she's out of sight, Bruce goes back to the car and watches the other kids going in. The car park emptied steadily as first the taxis left, then the chauffers, finally leaving Bruce alone with a few cars that presumably belonged to some of the senior high school students.

It's a pleasant August day, so Bruce opens the sunroof and climbs up to sit on the roof of the car. He crosses his legs, puts his hands on his knees, closes his eyes and begins to meditate. He's occasionally brought back to the surface by the bell tolling for the change of class periods. Once or twice, he thinks he spots Shanta at a corridor or classroom window.

Eleven o'clock is the morning interval. A few of the children gather at the gate to the car park to wonder about the odd man who's been there all day. Shanta appears too, smiling brightly when she sees that he's still there, which makes Bruce feel significantly less stupid. She then runs off with a couple of other little girls, but returns twice during the fifteen-minute interval to check that he's still there.

At lunchtime a number of the older students come out to get their cars and go out for lunch. Several of them stare suspiciously at Bruce.

"Excuse me," a boy of about seventeen says, walking over to the car. Bruce slips off of the roof. "What are you doing here, sir?"

"My daughter started here today," Bruce explains. "She's very nervous, so I got permission from Mrs Teazle to wait here for her. You can check with her; my name's Dr Banner." He holds out his hand and the boy shakes it cautiously.

"Doctor Bruce Banner?" one girl pipes up. "Who recently produced the paper on subatomic particle acceleration?"

"That was me," Bruce confirms. "Well, half of it was Tony, but never ever give him that much credit." The girl actually squees and digs into her bag for her notebook.

"I'm hoping to study theoretical physics in college, and can I say your work is _inspiring_?" she breathes, holding out a jotter and a pen. "Can I have your autograph?"

Bruce returns to his meditation after they've gone. It feels unusual to him to be recognized _positively_… to be _inspiring_.

Shanta comes to check he's there twice during the lunch hour, and once during afternoon interval.

At quarter to four, Bruce gets down from the roof as other cars start to pull up. There are only about fifteen commuting students out of two thousand, and as most of them also attend extracurricular activities, only three boys and one girl leave at the same time as Shanta. They are all younger than her, but Shanta is the one to come charging out and fling her arms around Bruce."

"You are here, Daddy!" she says excitedly.

"Of course I am," Bruce says gently, picking her up and carrying her around to put her in the passenger seat. "I promised, didn't I?"

Shanta nods, looking relieved. She's not been very talkative about her early childhood, but it's clear she's been left before. Bruce can tell that The Other Guy has a strong desire to meet whoever abandoned Shanta and do what he does best.

"So, how was your day?" Bruce asks to divert his thoughts. As he turns on the car, his phone comes on and he notes about fifteen petulant messages from Tony asking when he's going to come home and play. "What did you do?"

"We are taken on tour of school, and introduce to many teacher," Shanta explains. "Of new children, many are small, but some are bigger like me and some are bigger more!"

"So do you think you know your way around?" Bruce asks. Shanta frowns.

"No," she decides. "Is very big. But is okay, because all class go together, teacher say. I am talking often to Chogyel, because he is from Kolkata also and he speak Hindi. He explain many things. His father is general and is rich, so send him here to learn. I sit with Maeve…" she pronounces the name slowly, heavily accenting the V. "She is from Ireland country, but her family live now in New York for many year because of Proddy and Kaffic gangs fight, she say. I think… she talk very fast and I not understand all she say, but she is nice…"

Shanta soon relaxes, talking happily about her day, and so Bruce relaxes too.

{}

The next day, Shanta leaves the car on her own, but she still seems nervous, so Bruce promises to wait for her again. She has classes today, so he hopes she'll worry less and enjoy school.

He meditates for most of the morning. Shanta only checks for him once at interval before running off with the dark-haired girl that must be Maeve. She only checks once during lunch as well. Bruce ends up spending most of the afternoon on the phone with Tony, talking him through why building a lightsaber onto his suit is a bad idea. He doesn't bother trying to explain the impossibility of the task to the mad engineer, who will probably just take it as a challenge. He doesn't see if Shanta looks for him in the afternoon interval.

After school today, Shanta is walked to the gates by Maeve and an Indian boy who is probably Chogyel. On the way home, Shanta talks with considerable excitement about her lessons and what they're going to learn. She doesn't seem to have taken to History much, though.

On the Wednesday Bruce goes for a drive for a couple of hours in the middle of the day. At the end of the day he's sure that Shanta never noticed, but she looks scared as she runs out of the gates. Her expression when she spots Bruce is of utter relief.

"I do not see you at lunch," she says, flinging her arms around him. "I scared you leave. Maeve and Chogyel say you do not leave, because such things do not happen here in America, but I am anyway scared… I am sorry, Daddy."

"Don't be sorry," Bruce says, giving her a hug. "If you've been left alone before, then it's perfectly understandable to be scared of it happening again. But you know what?"

"What?" Shanta sniffs. Bruce puts his hand over his heart.

"I give you my word," he says solemnly, "that I will ALWAYS come back for you. Always. You know what happens to men who break their word?"

Shanta giggles. "Uncle Thor make smash with Mjolnir!" she declares.

"Exactly!" Bruce laughs. "I swear it under threat of being smashed by Mjolnir, Shanta. I'll always come back."

"Okay," Shanta says, nodding and grinning brightly. The Other Guy wants to smash somebody even more. Bruce tunes him out, focusing on Shanta telling him about the clubs and societies that the school has. She's thinking of joining the hockey team because Maeve is on it.

On Thursday, though he worries about doing it, he leaves in the middle of the day. He doesn't even go far, just out of sight of the school, and spends the entire time bickering with Tony over the phone. The madman is now trying to figure out the logistics of building a portal gun. Bruce isn't entirely sure what that is, aside from that it's from a video game, but he thinks Tony really ought to get back to work on improving his Ark Reactor technology. Tony whines that "real science" is no fun without Bruce there. The whole argument serves its purpose, at least, making Bruce forget to worry about Shanta.

At the end of the day, Shanta is very calm when she leaves school, jumping happily into the car.

"I see you leave at lunch, but you promise to come back," she says simply. "At lunch I play computer game with Maeve and Chogyel and other friend. I win much! They not as good at game as Uncle Tony! But Saori get sad about lose much, so I help her win one…"

{}

On Friday morning, Bruce leaves soon after the first classes start. He goes back to Stark Tower and drags Tony away from trying to program a Porygon and into the serious lab work, but Bruce is so jittery himself that they don't get a lot done. He checks his phone dozens of times for calls from Shanta and fends off a lot of teasing from Tony about being a "doting Daddy".

At the end of the day he arrives half an hour before the end of classes. He hears the final bell ring and sees the few children who are collected be picked up, but Shanta doesn't come out. He checks his phone a few times, but there's nothing from Shanta. She comes out forty-five minutes late with Maeve, who gives her a hug and waves her out.

"There you are," Bruce sighs, giving her a hug. "I was worried about you, Shanta."

"Sorry, Daddy!" Shanta gasps. "Maeve want to show me book she has. I cannot read all words easy, but she says maybe we read together and I learn the words? We sit and read and I forget time!"

"It's okay to stay and play with your friends after school," Bruce says, pulling out the car. "Just give me a call and let me know, okay? So I know where you are and don't have to worry."

"Don't worry, Daddy," Shanta says, smiling at him. "I promise I always come back!"

Bruce smiles. Shanta's going to be alright at school.


	23. Now For Something Completely Different

Avengers writer meme.

by *KHwhitelion

DA Music Meme for Writers

1. Pick a character, fandom, pairing, friendship, whatever. In this case: The Avengers

2. Put on your music program on shuffle/random and start playing songs.

3. For each song, write something inspired by the song related to the theme you chose earlier. You only have the song length. No pre-planning and no writing after the song is over. No skipping songs either.

4. Do 10 songs and post. Make sure to include the song name/artist.

1.

Addicted- Kelly Clarkson

03:56

She wanted to wipe the red out of her ledger. She wanted to so badly. She could never look back without guilt, without shame, without the desperate desire to do things over.

And yet, every new mission, every new chance to _fight_... it sent a rush of purpose through her like nothing else. She would lose herself in logistics, in playing others like a harp, in fighting, and never think about what she was actually _doing_ until the end.

Or what it was doing to her.

At least these days, working for SHIELD, her missions left her with less guilt, less shame, but it didn't change the fact that every one sent her body count higher. And this one had gotten under her skin in a new way. Loki had seen right to the heart of her, and even he might not know how hard he had hit.

_There is no redemption._

_There is no redemption and every mission will only bury you further._

It was true. She was buried, and she was stifling. But she was addicted.

And the next time she was called out for a mission, she would not hesitate to answer that call.

2.

The River-

03:15

Loki watched night and day roll over this strange, round world. Asgard was a land of eternal sunrise, or sunset- he wasn't sure which. It was the first time he'd ever thought about such things. The sky was just a constant, beautiful aurora-

He cut off those thoughts. Thoughts of home- of _Asgard. _Asgard was not his home, and he would not accept Jotunheim, the land of monsters. He would have to make this world, Midgard, his home. His kingdom. The kind of kingdom it was his right to rule.

There was the faintest whisper in his mind that he should stop now, go back to Asgard. Maybe they would be happy to see he was alive. But the words were faint, and he pushed them back with ease. He knew that it couldn't be true. He was the monster that his bro- that _Thor_ had fought on the Bifrost, the traitor who had let Jotuns into Asgard, the tool that Odin had never had chance to use.

There was neither home nor deliverance for him to take. He would just have to make do.

3.

The Story of Us- Taylor Swift

04:25

"Come home," Thor begged Loki. "Just stop this and come home!"

"I have no home," Loki spat. It broke Thor's heart to see the twisted, broken creature that his little brother had become.

"Do you truly believe that?" He cried. "That we would abandon you so easily? Come home with me, to our parents! We can work things out! Just talk to us!"

"Your parents, Thor, not mine," Loki snarled. "I _killed_ my father, did you not notice?" Thor flinched. He had, perhaps deliberately, avoided thinking about Loki killing Laufey, and about who Laufey really was.

"Your parents too, if you'd just open your eyes and accept them!" He yelled. "We did not abandon you, Loki! _You_ abandoned _us!_ But it's not too late... please..."

"Save your breath," Loki said softly, and for a fleeting moment, Thor saw the great sadness in his brother's eyes. "We both know that there is no going back for me now. We can never again be brothers as we once were. So what's the point in _trying_?" With that, he swung his spear at Thor again. Thor ducked and rolled, smacking the spear aside with Mjolnir, despite having a clear shot at Loki. He couldn't bring himself to hurt him directly. Not yet. But he'd have to.

"_If only we could lay down these weapons_," he thought sorrowfully as their battle resumed over burning New York. "_You need only say the word, brother..._"

4.

Brooklyn Rage- YGOTAS

03:55

Bruce's mind was on _fire_.

It always felt this way. He had faint, dim memories of it always feeling this way, but he was always too in the moment to remember fully. He grabbed a Chitauri warrior and flung it into four others without even thinking. It was there. Smash it. _Smash_.

And yet, there was an unusual level of thought going on. Part of him was actually _planning_. Run this way, it whispered. Clear this street, you can run straight through the ground floor of that store to the next one. We can hear more warriors there. I can hear them.

The Chitauri shot at him, but he barely even felt it. The barest registration of sensation. They couldn't touch him. They couldn't beat him. He could beat them, though. Smash them all into the dust.

Smash them into the ground, he thought. Not through windows. Less property damage.

Chitauri warriors were heading towards the bridges, towards Brooklyn, the rest of New York. They would not get there. Bruce's rage would reach them first.

He could destroy them all, and he was loving it. It was pure, and it was free, and it was _burning._

5.

S-S-S-Saturday- Bowling For Soup

03:05

"It's Saturday night, Banner!"

Bruce jerked away from his microscope, having nearly stabbed it into his eyes in surprise. Only his glasses saved him. He automatically regulated his breathing to drop his pulse rate back down as he glared at his errant boss and best friend. "So it is," he said, glancing at his watch. "So?"

"Been in the Third World for too long?" Tony Stark said. "Or the lab? It's time to go out, relax, party, maybe get laid- well, not me, I'm taken," he corrected himself. "But we could get you laid, maybe!"

"I can't get excited, Tony," Bruce said calmly, shutting down his current experiment. Tony rolled his eyes and slapped himself on the forehead.

"Well, Captain Tight-pants is back in town, we can get _him_ laid," he said. "The last girl he dated is on a walker now. I don't even know if he's ever _been_ laid. In which case, as his friends, it is our duty to get him some!"

"This is going to end badly..." Bruce said, unable to resist a smirk as he and Tony left the lab.

06.

A Tear To Shed- The Corpse Bride

02:35

_I could have been a ruler. I should have been a ruler_.

Resentment whirled in Loki's head as he sat silently in his prison, waiting to face Asgardian justice. He should have been ruler of Midgard. What did Thor have that he didn't, that he would be a better king? Perhaps greater brute strength, but Loki had always been cleverer, a greater magician, more composed, a better liar...

Less trustworthy. Less compassionate. Murderer. _Genocide_.

He had just wanted to be like Thor, that was all. As good as the all-perfect Thor. Thor had said that he would kill all of the Jotuns himself, so was Loki using the Bifrost so different? He had just wanted to be like Thor...

A single tear slid down his cheek, and he almost tried to laugh. Huh. So he did still have those after all.

7.

Complicated- Avril Lavigne

04:04

"Why did you have to do this, Loki?"

Thor stood inside of the cell, looking sorrowfully at the pitiful, bound figure of Loki. He had removed the muzzle, hoping to talk to him, but Loki had only stared blankly at his feet, not reacting to Thor at all, as if he wasn't there. Perhaps he had known this would have hurt the most.

"Why did we have to... misunderstand everything?" he said softly. "You should have said something sooner. You did not have to be me... you had so many fine qualities that I do not. You could have been great, in your own way..."

"But never as great as you," Loki said spitefully. "Never as great as the mighty Thor. No matter what _fine qualities_ I had."

"Why decide that on your own?" Thor asked him. "You decide what others are thinking and always think the worst. Despite what you think, we never thought the less of you for what you are."

"Just the choices I made," Loki said. He still hadn't looked up.

"...Yes," Thor said regretfully. "I wish you had chosen differently, Loki. I wish that things had been simpler, that they had not gotten so..._ complicated_."

"What good do wishes do us now?" Loki whispered, his voice fading away entirely. He spoke no more, to Thor or anyone, lost in his own words again.

8.

Hakuna Matata- The Lion King

03:3

"Up here again?" Tony said, kicking the door to the roof access closed behind him. Bruce was leaning on the railing, staring down to the city streets so very far below. Such a position was unnerving to most, but Tony had given up worrying about it. They both knew that it wasn't Bruce that would hit the ground, that it would be futile anyway, and would probably only kill somebody else.

"What if I'm immortal, like Steve?" Bruce said softly. "What if I have to go on like this forever? What if I'm here when the sun burns out or goes supernova? Could I die even then?"

"It's a long way off, Bruce," Tony said with a shrug. "Don't worry about it." He leaned against the railing, looking in at his bar instead of out at the city. He spotted Bruce giving him an incredulous look out of the corner of his eye.

"Don't worry?" he said. "That's all you've got to say."

"...Yup," Tony said after a moment of thought, clapping Bruce on the shoulder. "There's nothing you can do about it, right? So live for the moment, and don't worry. No point in it. Want a drink?"

"...Sure," Bruce said, stepping away from the edge again.

9.

Shot Through The Heart- Bon Jovi

03:44

Natasha had been on the edge ever since those three little words. _Barton's been compromised_. She hadn't even seen it coming. Not that Clint would be brainwashed- though really, who could have predicted that?- but how hard it had hit her.

She'd been foolish. She'd _relied_ on him. As a battle partner, and as a friend. As the only confidante who really understood her. As if she needed that. What was she, some nervous schoolgirl that needed a BFF to whisper all her secrets to?

But somehow it had happened. The damage was done. Clint had gotten _in_. And now she was faced with a terrible thought. What if she had to fight him? What if Loki's brainwashing could not be undone, and he had to be killed? Clint was an incredibly dangerous opponent, she knew that well. He had to be taken out from under Loki's control by any means necessary. If he had to be killed, he had to be killed. She knew that. But...

Dammit. If this was love, it was the worst. She didn't want it. She didn't need it. She had a job to do.

But it was still there, a shot lodged into her heart.

10.

Born For This- Paramore

03:58

There were more Chitauri warriors. Steve took them out left and right, easily spotting the ricochet angles that would allow him to take out dozens at once with his shield and have it return to his hand. Thor had no need of such calculations, not with Mjolnir. They knocked down swathes of them. Black Widow and Hawkeye were easily holding their own, reporting regularly through the comms as they methodically knocked out one street after another, Black Widow's ground work backed up by Hawkeye's arrows. Tony was flitting around everywhere, shooting Chitauri out of the air like flies, and Hulk... well, he didn't have a comm, but it was easy to know where the giant green engine of destruction was, smashing apart Chitauri with ease while ignoring civilians and his teammates.

It was working. They were a team. They were _seamless_. The pressure was on high, with the fate of the world at stake and the lives of the citizens of New York in their hands, but right now, they were working flawlessly, they were winning, they were _doing_ it.

They were protecting the people. They were protecting the earth. They were doing what they were born to do, and it felt perfect.


	24. Post Trauma

_**Name**__: Post Trauma_

_**Words:**__ 2457_

_**Main Character(s):**__ Loki Laufeysson, Thor Odinsson, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Bruce Banner, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton_

_**Notes:**__ Nobody comes out of warfare entirely whole. Saving the world isn't the end of the struggle._

Immediately after the Battle of Manhattan, Loki was taken into SHIELD custody. He was muzzled for safety's sake after spitting a few spiteful insults at his guards, but the mere fact that he felt the need so just underlined the fact that since his beatdown at the hands of the Hulk, all of the fight had gone out of the Trickster God. Without the staff, the Tessarect or the Chitauri, he was much less of a threat.

The Avengers, prompted by Tony, descended back to the streets of Manhattan for shawerma. Tony paid the propetiers of the half-destroyed joint enough to repair their entire street to feed the worn-out team.

Tony, as the one who'd suggested the dinner, felt it was his duty to eat, but his adrenaline was still running high from his brush with death and he wasn't feeling all that hungry and didn't end up eating a lot.

Steve, despite his high metabolism normally allowing him to eat like a horse, couldn't do much more than pick at his food. He was mentally and emotionally exhausted, not to mention more physically tired than he'd ever really been, and felt like he could do with a while lying down and just letting his brain catch up.

Clint was _famished_, having not eaten for three or four days, but he knew that if he stuffed himself he'd make himself sick, so he nibbled and tried to stay awake.

Natasha only chewed because it was something to do, and it kept her from collapsing entirely onto her plate.

Thor barely saw his food. Thoughts and worries about his brother were churning inside of him, leaving him with a sick feeling, and he only ate when prompted to by Tony.

Bruce ended up eating most of everybody else's. Two transformations in less than a day took a huge amount of energy, and he was both starving and exhausted.

{}

Tony walked steadily along the platform, letting Jarvis remove the Mark VII. He tried to board the elevator, but he couldn't even get inside. His legs gave out after two steps without the suit. He could feel himself shaking all over, and suddenly he couldn't breathe.

Through the cloud of rising panic, he cursed. He'd thought he was getting _better_ about this.

He had felt this way before. He ought to have expected it. After missions, after battling Obadiah, after the fight at the Stark Expo. As soon as he removed the suit, as soon as he was no longer Iron Man… Cap had no idea what he'd asked. As soon as he was Tony Stark again, he had to go through it all again. Explosions. Gunfire. Screaming. And it all scared the hell out of Tony Stark, ringing in his ears, making his head pound, and filling his chest with a million tiny points of pain that made it impossible to breathe.

He pressed his hands over the Ark Reactor as he gasped for breath. It hadn't been this bad in a long while. Then again, he'd been closer to death today than he had since that terrible day in Afghanistan, four years before. He screwed up his eyes, trying not to remember the desert, but the lights that flashed behind his eyes became stars and a burning Chitauri fleet.

He didn't know how long he lay on the floor, curled in on himself, trying desperately to breathe, but suddenly Pepper was there; prying up his fingers so she could hold his hand, running her fingers through his hair, talking about how she'd seen it on the news midflight and how scared she'd been for him and how glad she was that he was alright now, _it was alright now._

He clung to her. Pepper. She was always there. Except in Afghanistan, she hadn't been there in the desert. But that was alright, because she was home. If he was with Pepper, he wasn't in the desert, he wasn't dying, he was home and safe and everything was alright for now…

He slowly uncurled and sat up, his breathing evening out. As soon as he started to relax, Pepper started nagging him about flying through the portal, she was proud of him for saving Manhattan and all but his suit wasn't outfitted for space flight and he could have been _killed_…

"Hey, it _worked_, didn't it?" Tony said indignantly, throwing himself into the argument. A little domestic bickering was soothing, in an odd way. Arguing with Pepper was another bit of normality, another bit of home. Just to fuel it up a little more, he brought up his little face-to-face with Loki.

"_Without_ your armour?" Pepper screeched. "Are you _mad_?"

"Well, yeah, I kinda was!" Tony shouted back. He was pleased that his lungs didn't hurt anymore. "I mean, that bastard killed-" he cut himself off, his eyes suddenly hot as he backtracked. Oh _god_, what was he _thinking_? He didn't want to break this to Pepper, but she was looking scared and confused and he _had_ to tell her, if only to spare her finding out another way. "Agent Coulson," he choked out. "He killed Agent Coulson."

"Phil?" Pepper gasped. Tony nodded. Tears started running down Pepper's cheeks, and Tony could feel some on his own. He let them flow as he wrapped his arms around Pepper. They sat there for a while, just holding each other, comforting each other. Just the two of them.

{}

Bruce was still hungry when they returned to Stark Tower. Most of the others wandered off into the guest bedrooms that Jarvis directed them to, but Bruce headed for the kitchen. He ended up collapsing on Tony's sofa, munching his way through a big stack of toast as he slowly drifted off. He was on the edge of consciousness when Tony and a pretty strawberry-blonde stepped out of the lift, puffy-eyed and arms around each other as if they were holding each other up.

"Hey," Bruce mumbled. "S'ry, stole some've y'r food."

"Don't sweat it, big guy," Tony sniffed, flopping on the couch next to him. "Bruce, this is most definitely the better half, Pepper. Pepper, this is the less smashy half of Doctor Bruce Banner."

"Pleasure to meet you," Pepper said, smiling weakly, and then stifling a sob. "Sorry, I just heard…"

"Heard?" Bruce asked, trying to wake his brain back up. What was she crying about? Heard what? Heard about him, about The Other Guy? Was she afraid of him? "Heard… what?"

Tony must have caught his look, because he clarified, "about Phil."

"Phil?" Bruce asked, confused. He was really too tired to be trying to think, and he couldn't identify who "Phil" was. Tony's face fell.

"Shit, that's right, you won't know," he moaned, rubbing a hand over his face resignedly. "Phil Coulson. Loki… killed him. On the helicarrier."

A faint vision of a serene man in a suit swam into Bruce's brain, following Steve around like a puppy, swapping orders with Natasha, talking with Thor, snarking with Tony. He forced his eyes properly open to look at Tony as saw that he was shaking slightly, the backed up fear and exhaustion and grief all collapsing over him. Bruce recognized the ravages of PTSD all too well.

"I'm sorry," he said sincerely, putting a hand on Tony's shoulder. Tony slung his arm over Bruce's shoulder, the other wrapped around Pepper, his breathing shaky.

Bruce finally passed out, mumbling condolences into Tony's shoulder.

{}

Clint was out like a light the second his head hit the pillow. In his line of work, though, being a heavy sleeper was dangerous. He woke from a twisted nightmare about eyeballs the second his door opened.

He instantly recognized Natasha's footsteps, even before he cracked his eyes open and saw her peering intently at him. She was breathing a little quickly, as if she'd been running.

"Still me," Clint murmured, reaching out and squeezing her hand. He opened his eyes, letting her see them. "…Right?"

"Right," Natasha said quietly, squeezing back, assuring him that his mind is alright. "I didn't want to have to concuss you again. I'm saving that for Tony. Have you seen the nightclothes he had stocked for me?" Clint notes that while he managed to grab a shirt and sweatpants that were left folded in his room and were conveniently his size (so that was what Tony kept texting about during shawerma), hers were extremely oversized and baggy. "I had to steal these from Banner's room. He must have crashed somewhere else, he wasn't there."

"I heard him talkin' to Tony," Clint said. His room was closer to the living room than Natasha's. "Sounds like he's still him, too."

"Good," Natasha sighed, rocking back on her heels. "Sorry for waking you up. You need your rest."

"So do you," Clint said, not letting go of her hand. "C'mon." He got up too, even though his legs felt like lead laced with pain. He made a mental note to _always_ shoot the windows out first in the future.

He ended up having to lean an arm over her shoulders to stay upright. She wound one arm around his waist and leaned into his side as the two of them wandered down the hall, supporting one another again.

Bruce, Tony and Pepper were all curled up on one end of the long, semicircular couch. Bruce had fallen asleep with his head on Tony's shoulder, and Tony was sound asleep on Bruce's head. Pepper was curled up, half next to Tony and half on top of him, one hand over his Ark Reactor. One swollen red eye cracked open for long enough to give Natasha a wan smile before she drifted off again.

"See?" Clint whispered, nodding at Bruce as he sank down on the other end of the couch. "All calm." He more or less fell backwards onto the couch, not feeling up to the trek back to his room. It really was _ridiculously_ comfortable. Natasha seemed to agree.

"Mmmm… oh, good, you're all here."

{}

Steve changed into the shirt and sweatpants left in his room and flopped down on the ridiculously soft bed- _definitely_ not military issue- ready to pass out, but he couldn't. He lay there for what felt like hours, too afraid to fall asleep.

He'd felt this way before, the first time he'd tried to go to sleep in his new 21st-century apartment. He'd been unable to help the irrational fear that if he went to sleep, he'd wake up to find that another seventy years had passed. But the fear had passed, and hadn't been quite as acute as this.

He knew why. In the past two or three days- it felt like so much longer, he had to remind himself that it had been less than a week since the Tessarect had been stolen- he'd become part of a team again, like back in the day with the Howling Commandoes. He'd been _part_ of something again. He hadn't felt alone anymore.

He couldn't lose them again. He just couldn't.

He heard running feet in the hall outside. What was going on? Did something happen?

He got up and stepped out, walking past the doors to Bruce and Natasha's rooms. The doors were open and the beds empty. It was the same for Clint's room, and Thor's. It was making Steve feel alone and nervy.

The feeling blissfully dissolved as he stepped into the living room and saw the five people dozing on the long, round couch. Tony and Bruce were leaning on each other on one end of the couch, with a red-haired lady sleeping on top of Tony with one of his eyes tight around her. Steve guessed that she was Pepper Potts, mentioned in the briefing on Tony Stark as his "girlfriend/babysitter". Steve wondered what her parents thought of her sleeping with Stark like that.

Clint and Natasha were on the other end of the couch, also wrapped a little too close around each other for Steve's old-fashioned comfort. Clint was flat on his back, looking like he'd been dropped there from the ceiling, and Natasha was lying on her side between him and the back of the couch.

"Mmm…" Steve yawned, sitting on the couch between them and the three on the other end. "Good. You're all here." His sleepy brain noted that while there were five people there, they weren't quite the _right_ five. Where was Thor…?

"Still gonna be here when you wake up," Natasha murmured, reaching up and patting his hand. "Go to sleep."

Steve drifted off with her still holding his hand.

{}

Thor sat on the tower roof, staring at the spot where the Tessarect had been, and then looking out across the damaged city. It could heal. He could see lights in the streets, candles and torches where there was no electricity as the citizens of New York set about cleaning up. Some people were playing music somewhere. There were sirens and flashing lights where people were still being rescued from destroyed buildings.

All because of his brother. All because of Loki.

He closed his eyes, holding in his mind the little boy he'd played with, the comrade he'd fought alongside, the man he'd talked with, the friend he'd laughed with. He remembered the brother he had lost.

A raven fluttered down to sit by his side, watching him too closely to be a bird of Midgard. Thor gently stroked its head with a finger. He knew this bird of old.

"Tomorrow, I will return to Asgard with the captive criminal Loki," he said, looking upon the stars. "Just for this night, one last time… let me think of my brother."

He stayed there alone until dawn, when he descended below to dream for a few hours with his new bretheren. If only Loki could understand that family could be chosen as easily as born…

{}

Loki sat alone in his cell. He couldn't even be bothered figuring out if he could escape.

Tomorrow he will return to Midgard. He must face the family he once had, and then he must face justice.

What is to come is out of his hands, and will no doubt be exactly what he deserves. What has been, he refuses to think about. There is too much loss, too much pain, too much that can never be again.

There is a raven sitting in the corner of its room. How it got in, he doesn't know, but that hardly matters. He will not let this bird see his weakness. He will not let it see his tears.

Instead he laughs, letting the crazed, wild laughter fill the room. Let him laugh for now, even if he never smiles again.


	25. Captain of What?

_**Title**__: Captain of What?_

_**Words:**__ 2687_

_**Main Character(s):**__ Captain Jack Harkness, Nick Fury, Maria Hill, Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Bruce Banner, Thor Odinsson, Loki Laufeysson, Clint Barton, Phil Coulson_

_**Notes:**__ You read that right. This one is definitely a stand-alone as it is Torchwood crossover crack. Pure, utter, terrible crack. I lay the blame squarely at the feet of DragonSigma. No ownie._

"Director Fury," Natasha said, striding into his office. "Here's my assessment report. To summarize, I would highly recommend retaining him in a consulting capacity, as I did with Stark, rather than hiring. He's been a team leader for too long, I suspect there'd be too much conflict with the dynamic of the team as it is now. Among other control issues. He's worse than Tony Stark." She handed over the folder to the director. "But there is nobody on earth more knowledgeable about alien threats."

"I note that you've convinced him to come meet with the team to go over the Chitauri incident," Fury said, reading the report, "but you've neglected to mention how."

"I felt that detail unnecessary, sir," Natasha said coolly. "The detailed version is rather extensive, if you do require it."

"No need," Fury said, setting the folder down. "This man has expressed no hostility towards Earth in about 200 years of known residence. We do need his knowledge and resources, if our experiments with the Tessarect and our alliance with Asgard are indeed a calling sign to the universe."

"Are we going to assemble the team on the Helicarrier, sir?" Natasha asked. Fury shook his head.

"You mentioned a possible personality clash, and I ain't havin' that happenin' 30,000 feet above the sea," Fury said, putting away the folder. "If anybody's place is gonna get trashed, it's gonna be Stark's. 'Least he don't have to go to the government for repair funds."

{}

"Hey, Steve," Bruce said, greeting the soldier as he stepped out of the lift and into the bar/lounge on the top floor of Stark Tower. It had become something of a communal place whenever several of them were in New York at the same time. "How was Germany?"

"It's actually a beautiful country," Steve said, sitting himself down on a couch. "When you're not looking at it tactically, I mean. It's the first time I've been there that nobody tried to kill me."

"Eh, what's a vacation without a near-death experience?" Tony said, pausing the video game that he was playing with Clint to wave at Steve.

"Normal?" Bruce suggested.

"Boring," Tony said, nodding. He switched the game off. "Remind me never to play shooters against you. Why did I think that was a good idea?"

"Actually, the accuracy of this game's terrible," Clint said, dropping his controller. "How the hell are you supposed to aim right?"

"Where are Thor and Natasha?" Steve asked.

"Natasha's escorting in this consultant we're meeting," Bruce said. "I don't know about Thor."

"Jarvis? Any clue?" Tony said.

"Miss Foster reported that he left Oslo four hours ago," the AI reported. "Given Mr Odinsson's average flight speed, he should be arriving in approximately ten minutes."

"He's flying himself?" Steve asked.

"I offered him a plane, but he says he flies faster," Tony said with a shrug. "He'd eat me out of inflight meals, anyway."

"So who is this guy that we're meeting?" Bruce asked. "Steve, Clint, do either of you know?"

"Consultant from Cardiff is what I heard," Clint said with a shrug. "Former British military and secret service. Apparently, he's an authority on extraterrestrials. The WSC actually suggested him. I'd call that unusually helpful of them if they couldn't have brought him up _before_ New York got invaded by aliens. Seems like the Brits have been keeping a lot of alien interaction under their belts."

"Keep calm and carry on!" Tony piped up, miming raising a cup of tea.

There was a rumble of thunder outside, and Thor dropped down onto the balcony outside.

"Greetings, comrades," he said, slinging Mjolnir onto his belt as he stepped inside. "How does everyone fare this day?"

"We're doing well," Steve said. "How's Miss Foster?"

"Engaged in some very exciting research regarding anomalous star patterns," Thor said, looking pleased. Thunder rumbled outside.

"Y'know Fury hates it when you drag stormclouds with you?" Clint put in. "The quinjet's flight can get pretty messed up in rough weather."

"They shall clear up momentarily," Thor said dismissively. "When shall the man we are to meet arrive?"

"Miss Romanov had estimated her arrival time to be in twenty-four minutes," Jarvis offered. "In the meantime, a briefing on Captain Harkness has been transmitted." A photograph of a dashing, dark-haired man appeared on one of the holoscreen windows, with information sheets appearing on the others. "Name: Jack Harkness, not his real name, real name unknown. Age unknown, estimated to be upwards of two hundred. Reputed to be immortal."

"Y'know, he looks kind of familiar," Steve said with a frown. "Can I see his military record?" The requested document appeared onscreen. The man had seen active service during the Boer War, World War One and World War Two. "We worked with a British special unit a couple of times in Poland. I wonder if I met him there."

"Hey, you two old buddies can hang out and share war stories," Tony said, reading one of the briefing forms. "Y'know, if I didn't know you guys, I wouldn't be buying any of this. This guy's supposed to have been shot, stabbed, drowned, trampled and blown up and he's still alive?"

"Well, it says he _does_ die, he just don't stay that way," Clint observes. "Wonder if it's another super-soldier serum? I once spent two months chasing rumours of a guy like that in Canada. Never found anything."

"I'd kill for a blood sample from someone with a healing factor like that," Bruce says thoughtfully.

"Well, you can," Tony points out. "He'll be fine in a few minutes!"

{}

"Gentlemen, I'd like to formally introduce you all to Captain Jack Harkness," Natasha said, stepping out of the lift with the Captain in tow. He was as tall as Steve and wearing a dark, old-fashioned long coat. He was also even more handsome in real life than he was in the photo. Everyone thought it, nobody admitted to it.

"Captain Harkness, I think we met in Poland in about '44?" Steve said, shaking his hand. "I'm the leader here-"

"Captain Rogers!" Captain Harkness said, smiling brightly and shaking Steve's hand. "I remember you! I never forget a pretty face in a tight uniform. I heard you'd gone missing in combat?"

"Just got frozen for awhile," Steve said. "They found me a couple years ago."

"Good to have you back," Jack said. "Your unit were really broken up about losing you. Nice guys. I managed to cheer a couple of them up."

"Oh, thank you," Steve said, looking in confusion at Tony when the man sniggered. "Anyway, Natasha you've already met. I'd like to introduce you to Agent Clint Barton, Doctor Bruce Banner, Tony Stark and-"

"I knew your old man back in the day too," Jack said, nodding to Tony. "Had a few _wild_ nights out. Maria was a lovely woman too, and an absolute _saint_ to tame Howie. Far too good for him, probably."

"Ain't that the truth," Tony said. "Nice to meet you, Captain Harkness."

"And this is Thor, son of Odin," Steve said, introducing him to the last member of the Avengers. "The Thunder God… well, an alien, strictly speaking, from the planet Asgard…"

"Hey, just 'cause my speciality is fighting aliens doesn't mean I'm against them," Jack said, making the rounds of shaking everyone's hands. "Some of my best friends have been aliens. Some of my best lays, too." He winked at Thor, patting his bicep as he walked past. "So, anyway, Chitauri, huh? _Damn, _they came a long way to screw up New York…"

{}

They spent three days discussing the Chitauri attack, getting alien invasion simulations programmed into Jarvis' holographic simulation subroutine, and evidently winning enough of the Captain's trust to be let in on some of Torchwood's extraterrestrial records. Captain Harkness was a charming guy, who managed to get some alone time with every one of the Avengers.

"Can I see the Ark Reactor?" he asked Tony. "Just curious."

"Sure, why not," Tony said, stepping back from the hologram of Loki's staff and pulling up his shirt. Jack leaned _extremely_ close to have a look; it would be called too close for comfort if the guy didn't smell so damn nice.

"Oh, very nice," Jack said eventually. "Very, very nice. Like the reactor, too," he added, straightening up with a wink. "This really is ahead of its time. We've got power supplies that don't look too different from that when I'm from. Smaller, more powerful, but the basic design…"

"_When_ you're from?" Tony asked sceptically, dropping his shirt.

"Oh, just you wait," Jack said, grinning. "You're at the beginning of a _very_ exciting time here…"

{}

"That was interesting," Jack commented as Bruce stepped out of his Smash Room, a little sweaty pulling the tie on his sweatpants tighter. "Gamma imbalance, from the looks of it. I know a really good doctor that could have a look at that for you, y'know."

"It's alright," Bruce said. "The Other Guy and I are getting along pretty well these days. He's handy to have around when there are aliens invading the planet or anything. You could say that he's the brawn and I'm the brains."

"You're not exactly skinny yourself," Jack laughed. "Are you the only guy in the tower that doesn't wax?"

"That is not a question I've ever asked the others, to be completely honest," Bruce said, reaching for his shirt.

"C'mon," Jack said, "don't tell me you never noticed…"

{}

"You're from Asgard, right?" Jack said, catching Thor making himself a batch of pop-tarts. Tony had installed a huge twelve-slot toaster in his kitchen for this very purpose. "I've only been there once. _Gorgeous_ place, absolutely beautiful. Gorgeous people, too. I mean, _wow_. Pretty sure I've got some Asgardian ancestry myself, if you couldn't tell," he added in a low tone with a dazzling grin.

"Ancestors of Asgard?" Thor asked curiously.

"Oh yeah, Midgard and Asgard are about to mix in a _big_ way," Jack said. "Citizens of earth are about to get even prettier, and Asgardians are gonna get a hell of a lot more mellow. Y'know, some humans worry that if they go out into the Universe they're going to end up in wars with everywhere, but truth is, humans are the greatest dancers there are, if you know what I mean… make love, not war, and all that."

"You are a very strange human," Thor said, plucking the finished pop-tarts out and piling them on a plate. He picked up one to eat, but Jack leaned over and snatched a bite.

{}

"Quite a view, isn't it?" Jack said, striding out of the roof access door with his hands in his pockets and standing on the roof edge, looking out over New York. Clint didn't bother to make him step back or warn him about the high force winds that tended to hit the building this high up. The previous day, Jack had shot himself in the heart, lay medically dead for about two minutes under Bruce's watch, and then gasped back to life. If he wanted to risk having to deal with the hurt of falling fifty stories, that was his business. "Wait 'til you see New New York. That's _really_ a city that never sleeps, by then they've invented the sleep pill- drop the pill, sit down for five minutes while your brain and muscles get refreshed, and then you're back at it again for twelve hours. Took 'em a few goes to get it right, of course, early batches came with heart and lung problems, so you might want to steer clear of that."

"It's fine, if we wanna go sleep-deprived we can always whack each other with that staff of Loki's," Clint said with a shrug. Jack smiled sympathetically.

"Mind control's never fun," he said. "Though I gotta say, it's still better than outright manipulation. At least with mind control, you're being, well, _controlled_. There's more than a few slick bastards out there who can make you do the worst shit, while convincing you that it's all your own will, all stuff that you _chose_ to do. Not fun."

"No," Clint agreed, nodding tersely. Jack backed away from the roof edge, sitting down next to Clint.

"So… come up here often?" the Captain asked with a laugh. "I find high places easier to think at, myself… it's amazing what a bit of a view does for you…"

{}

Everyone gathers in Tony's bar on the evening before Jack has to leave. Thor has brought aesirmead, so once the drinking starts, almost everyone goes down pretty quickly and even Thor ends up staggering out, singing loudly and happily. Jack and Steve, however, cannot get drunk, so both of them end up sitting up, drinking the nectar-sweet mead and reminiscing about the war. Jack talks about what he knew about Steve's men after the army.

"Well, saw old Falsworth quite a few times," Jack said, taking a long pull of his mead. "He and I worked with the SSR for quite a while. Went out for a while, too. Not all that acceptable in those days, though, not like it's really going to be, and he got so _Britishly_ uncomfortable about it." Jack laughed as Steve shifted awkwardly. "Am I making you uncomfortable, Captain?"

"No, no," Steve insisted. "I keep hearing people say it's not very Christian, but you know, the way I remember it the Bible was all about love, at least that's the way I was taught as a kid… I guess it doesn't matter that much if it's a man and a woman or two men or anything, right?"

"Exactly," Jack said warmly, putting his hand on Steve's.

{}

Jack made his goodbyes in much the same way that he greeted everyone. Everyone came to see him off, including Pepper, and he shook everyone's hands and gave everyone a kiss goodbye. He claimed it was customary when he was from, and nobody bothered contradicting him. There were quite a few red cheeks and averted eyes once the Captain had left.

"Oh, damn!" Tony suddenly said, slapping his knee. "I meant to ask him about- what was that thing he did, Pepper, that made you-"

"_Tony_," Pepper hissed, now bright red. Tony looked around unabashedly.

"Yeah, like we were the only ones that slept with him," he said with a broad, unashamed grin. "Jarvis sees all, y'know, guys." Pepper stalked from the room, extremely red. Steve also bolted, which made Tony laugh.

"I, uh, did some diagnostics on his blood," Bruce said, apparently trying to change the subject. "Crossing it with samples of my blood and Steve's might lead to some breakthrough work on our genetic structures to unlock cures to, well, everything…"

"Give me something sciency to pitch the board and I'll get you some funding," Tony promised. Thor and Clint got up to leave while the two mad scientists discussed matters.

"He also naturally produces an extraordinary pheromone," Bruce added placidly. "All but irresistible to humans."

"So that's why he smelled so good," Clint muttered, before catching himself and leaving quickly.

"Did he smell that good to you, Thor?" Tony asked, grinning. "I mean, you're not human, so, y'know, in the interests of science-"

Thor was already gone. Tony laughed again.

"The Other Guy liked it too," Bruce muttered, unable to help laughing himself. Tony could be infectious, almost as much as Captain Harkness.

{}

Agent Coulson arrived to escort Captain Harkness out to a quinjet after the debriefing aboard the Helicarrier. On the way out, the Captain gave both Maria and Director Fury a slap on the ass.

Fury gave Maria a Look that said that he would never ask her if she never asked him. She nodded and went back to her work.

Captain Jack Harkness and Phil Coulson sat down in the quinjet. The pilot reported that it would be three hours until they reached Wales, starting from where the helicarrier was in the midatlantic.

"Three hours, huh?" Jack said, putting his hand on Phil's knee. "We'll have to find some way to pass the time, won't me?"

… _I don't even know what just happened. I'm not even sorry._


End file.
